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THE   DROWNED    GIRL. 


113 


PEEP  AT  OUR  NEIGHBORS; 


THE   SEQUEL   TO 


THE   WILLOW   LANE   BUDGET. 


itfitjj  Sllustrattntisf. 


BY  UNCLE  FEAKK, 

AUTHOR     OF     THE     "  QUEER     OLD     MILLER,"     ETC. 


NEW   YORK: 

CHARLES  SCIUBNER,  145  NASSAU  STREET. 

1852. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1851,  by 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for 

the  Southern  District  ol  New  York. 


C.  W.   BENEDICT, 
Stereotyper  and  Printer, 
201  William  St.,  N.  Y- 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

WHAT    I    AM     GOING    TO     DO,              ...  .7 

A    GLANCE    AT     PARSON     DALEY,              .            .            .            .  16 

DOCTOR    WINDMAN     AND    HIS     DOSES,         .            .            .  .47 

HUNTING    HENS'     NESTS,      ......  63 

CLIMBING    THE    PEACH    TREE,           .            .            .            .  .          83 

THE     BALL    FAMILY,               .*....  90 

.  CHIPS     OF     THE     OLD     BLOCK, 105 

-^9          THE     DROWNED     GIRL, 113 

gjf"         THE    YOUNG    TRUTH-TELLER,  .  .  .  .  .118 

rL 


VI  CONTENTS. 

FACE 

THE     NEW     SKATES, 140 

LAUGHING     BILL,   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .159 

UNCLE     FRANK'S    LEAVE-TAKING,  .  .  .  .  173 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

the   drowned   girl,                 .         .         .  Frontispiece 

VIGNETTE     TITLE-PAGE,              ....  .1 

A    PEEP    AT    WILLOW     LANE,         .            .            .  .            .                13 

PARSON     DALEY    AND    THE     LITTLE     GIRL,  26 

HUNTING    HENS'     NESTS,                                .            .  #           .                65 

JOE    AND    HIS     VICTIM, 108 

AMANDA     AT     HER     KNITTING    WORK,               .  .            .              119 

"OH,     DANIEL  !     FORGIVE     ME  !"      .            .            .  •            .156 


A  PEEP  AT  OUR  NEIGHBORS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

WHAT  I   AM   GOING   TO   DO. 

I  suppose  that  my  friends,  the  boys 
and  girls,  for  whom  I  make  this  book, 
would  like  to  know  at  the  outset,  what 
sort  of  a  thing  I  have  got  for  them,  and 
how  I  came  to  make  it.  I  will  tell 
them,  in  as  few  words  as  possible. 

Not  long  ago,  I  spun  some  yarns,  and 
wove  them  together,  and  sent  them  off 
to  the  little  folks  about  the  country,  with 


8  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

this  label  on  them :  "  A  Budget  of 
Willow  Lane  Stories."  I  had  quite  a 
liking  for  these  stories  myself.  "  That's 
natural  enough,  Uncle  Frank" — so  I 
fancy  I  hear  you  say — "  because  you 
made  them ;  and  people  are  apt  to  like 
what  they  make."  Yes,  I  know  that 
well  enough  ;  and  perhaps  that  is  one 
reason  why  I  took  so  kindly  to  these 
stories.  But  that  was  not  the  only  rea- 
son. It  was  not  the  chief  reason,  I 
think.  Willow  Lane  was  the  place 
where  I  was  born,  and  where  I  spent 
the  merriest  days  of  my  life. 

I  said  I  liked  these  stories,  and  that 
I  liked  them  because  they  had  so  much 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  9 

to  do  with  the  bright,  and  green,  and 
joyous  days  of  my  childhood.  But 
when  I  sent  the  budget  out,  to  be  open- 
ed and  read,  I  own  I  was  in  doubt 
whether  my  friends  would  be  pleased 
with  the  budget  or  not.  But  they  were 
pleased  with  it.  They  liked  it.  I  sus- 
pect that  the  very  neat  and  tasteful  dress 
in  which  the  book  appeared,  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  their  liking  it.  It  was 
beautifully  printed,  and  the  pictures  in 
it  were  very  fine.  So  that  it  is  due  to 
Uncle  Frank's  publisher,  Mr.  Scribner, 
as  much,  perhaps,  as  to  Uncle  Frank 
himself,  that  the  budget  was  so  well 
thought  of. 


s 


10  PEEP   AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Let  that  be  as  it  may,  however — the 
stories  about  matters  and  things  in  Wil- 
low Lane  were  read  so  eagerly,  that  I 
made  up  my  mind  to  set  my  thinking 
factory  agoing  again,  and  to  spin  and 
weave  some  more  yarns  from  the  same 
kind  of  stuff. 

"  What !  another  entire  budget,  Uncle 
Frank?" 

Yes,  another  budget. 

"But  I  have  not  opened  the  first  one 
yet." 

Haven't  you  ?  Well,  you  can  attend 
to  that  some  other  time.  It  will  not 
make  any  difference  which  book  you 
read  first.     If  you  do  not  read  the  other 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  11 

at  all — though  I  hope  you  will  read  it 
sometime  or  other — you  can  understand 
this  one  just  as  well.  The  stories  in  the 
first  budget  are  not  so  woven  into  the 
stories  in  the  second  budget,  that  you 
will  find  it  necessary  to  get  hold  of  the 
thread  at  the  very  beginning,  and  to 
keep  a  tight  hold  of  it  till  you  get  to  the 
end.  You  can  do  so  or  not,  just  as  you 
like,  or  just  as  you  find  it  convenient. 

Let  me  see.  What  label  shall  I  put 
upon  the  new  budget  ?  I  have  thought 
of  calling  it  "  A  Peep  at  our  Neighbors" 
I  guess  that  name  will  be  just  the  thing. 
While  I  am  peeping  at  those  neighbors, 
however,  you  will  not  expect  me  to  peep 


12  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

at  nothing  else.  We  must  take  some 
notice  of  things  as  well  as  of  people. 
We  cannot  very  well  avoid  doing  so,  if 
we  would  ;  and  I  do  not  think  it  would 
be  best  to  do  so,  if  we  could.  I  am 
more  anxious  to  weave  together  a  bundle 
of  stories  which  will  please  you,  and 
which  will  have  something  in  them  of 
real  value  to  you,  than  I  am  to  select 
just  such  facts  and  incidents,  and  only 
such,  as  will  fit  the  name  I  give  them. 

So  you  must  not  shake  your  head,  if 
it  seems  to  you  that  I  do,  once  in  a 
while,  get  away  a  few  paces  from  the 
text  I  have  taken.  Ministers  do  not 
always  stick  very  closely  to  their  texts, 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  15 

you  know.  They  wander  a  little  some- 
times. I  mean  to  take  the  same  liberty. 
Some  boys  and  girls,  when  they  read 
the  title  of  this  book,  may  think,  at  first, 
before  they  read  any  of  the  stories,  that 
Uncle  Frank  has  turned  tattler.  But 
there  is  no  tattling  in  the  book ;  nothing 
of  the  kind.  What  I  am  going  to  do, 
or  what  I  am  going  to  try  to  do,  may 
be  expressed  in  a  very  few  words,  and  I 
design  to  give  you  a  little  picture — a  sort 
of  daguerreotype  miniature — of  every- 
day life  in  our  neighborhood  at  Willow 
Lane. 


CHAPTER  II. 

A  GLANCE  AT  PARSON  DALEY, 

Our  minister  was  one  of  the  most  de- 
voted and  exemplary  men  it  has  ever 
been  my  lot  to  know.  Everybody  loved 
Parson  Daley.  It  was  not  so  easy,  per- 
haps, to  get  acquainted  with  ministers 
when  I  was  a  little  boy,  as  it  is  now. 
There  was  something  about  them,  which 
inspired  us  little  folks  with  great  reve- 
rence,   amounting,    at   times,   almost  to 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  17 

terror.     Their  very  dress  had  something 
of  the  awful  about  it  to  us. 

I  have  often  heard  my  father  tell  what 
a  time  he  used  to  have,  in  the  days  of 
his  boyhood,  when  he  met  the  minister 
who  then  preached  in  the  old  brick 
meeting-house.  That  was  a  little  while 
after  the  revolutionary  war ;  and  as  long 
ago  as  that  time  the  children  must  have 
been  almost  frightened,  when  they  came 
across  a  real,  live  minister  out  of  the 
pulpit,  and  had  to  look  him  in  the  face, 
and  speak  to  him.  My  father  said  that 
when  he  was  in  the  street,  and  saw  the 
minister,  though  ever  so  far  off,  coming 
right  toward  him,  jogging  along  leisurely 


18  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

upon  the  back  of  his  white  mare,  with 
his  short  clothes  on,  and  his  knee 
buckles  so  finely  polished,  he  began  to 
make  preparations  for  his  bow.  His  hat 
was  off  in  a  moment.  He  stopped  still, 
as  if  he  had  been  petrified,  and  waited 
for  the  great  man  to  come  up.  When 
the  meeting  took  place,  the  bow  was  got 
off  as  if  the  life  of  the  bower  depended 
on  the  character  of  his  bow. 

There  was  not  quite  so  much  venera- 
tion for  the  minister  when  I  was  a  boy, 
though  there  was  much  more  than  there 
is  now.  Now  there  may  be  too  little — 
then  there  might  have  been  too  much. 

Parson  Daley  was  not  an  old  man,  at 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  19 

the  time  I  am  writing  of.  Still  he 
was  an  old-fashioned  man — so  we  boys 
thought.  He  wore  short  clothes  and 
knee  buckles ;  and  his  hair  hung  down 
behind,  and  was  sometimes  fastened  in 
a  cue. 

When  he  walked  out,  there  was  not  a 
boy  or  girl  in  the  street,  that  he  did  not 
stop  to  speak  to.  There  was  some  stiff- 
ness about  him — something  which  always 
seemed  to  me  to  warn  me  against  coming 
too  near  him,  until  I  was  spoken  to,  and 
until  he  held  out  his  hand  toward  me,  as 
king  Ahasuerus  held  out  the  golden  scep- 
tre toward  Esther.  But  I  do  not  think 
he  really  courted  such  outward  respect  as 


20  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

everybody  paid  him.  He  received  it — 
expected  it — would  have  been  displeased 
at  the  absence  of  it — because  it  was  cus- 
tomary for  the  flock  to  render  it  to  the 
shepherd.  But  when  the  ceremony  of 
receiving  him  was  gone  through  with — 
when  you  had  got  through  the  crust  of 
ministerial  dignity,  if  I  may  say  so, 
which  covered  the  person  of  the  min- 
ister from  head  to  foot,  and  seemed  to 
render  him  almost  too  sacred  to  be  used 
except  on  Sundays,  fast  days,  and 
thanksgiving  days — when  you  got  into 
the  heart  of  the  man,  you  saw  at  a 
glance  that  he  was  one  of  the  last  per- 
sons in  the  wide  world  to  be  afraid  of. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  21 

How  often,  when  he  reined  his  old 
sorrel  horse  up  to  our  house,  and  hitched 
her  to  the  fence  near  the  door,  and  came 
in,  slowly  and  gravely,  with  an  air  so 
dignified,  have  I  wished  I  might  have 
leave  to  get  into  the  farthest  corner  of 
the  garret,  and  to  remain  there  among 
the  rats  and  cobwebs,  until  that  great 
man  should  remount  his  little  pacer  ;  and 
how  often,  too,  after  I  had  spoken  to  my 
good  pastor,  and  he  had  spoken  to  me, 
and  kindly  patted  me  on  my  head,  and 
told  me  some  nice  story,  with  a  good 
moral  tacked  to  the  end  of  it,  have  I 
wished,  when  I  have  heard  him  call  for 

his  hat,    and   say  he    must  go,   that  he 

2 


22  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

would  stay  until  sundown,  at  which  time 
it  was  customary  to  post  me  and  my 
brother  off  to  the  trundle  bed. 

It  was  a  great  day  when  Parson  Daley 
visited  the  district  school.  Then  we  all 
had  our  Sunday  clothes  on,  and  did  our 
very  best.  Then  the  schoolmaster  made 
us  read,  and  spell,  and  recite  our  lessons, 
and  parse,  and  do  long  sums  out  of  Da- 
boll's  arithmetic,  to  show  the  minister 
what  a  bright  set  of  boys  and  girls  we 
were.  Then— my  heart  throbs  now, 
when  I  think  of  it — then  the  minister 
asked  us  questions  in  geography  and 
grammar,  with  his  own  mouth.  When 
we  had  gone  through  with  all  the  rest  of 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  23 

the  exercises,  the  minister  got  the 
Primer,  and  heard  us  say  all  the  West- 
minster catechism,  from  the  "  chief  end 
of  man"  to  the  last  of  those  very  long 
answers,  over  which  I  had  to  rack  my 
poor  little  brains  so  much. 

He  never  left  the  school  without  giv- 
ing us  some  psalm  or  hymn  to  learn,  and 
telling  us  that  he  would  hear  us  say  it 
when  he  came  to  see  us  again.  Many 
of  the  hymns  I  learned  at  that  time,  and 
by  that  dear  man's  request,  are  as  fresh 
in  my  mind  at  this  moment,  as  if  I  had 
committed  them  to  memory  but  an  hour 
ago. 

I  have  said  that  Parson  Daley  always 


24  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

stopped  to  speak  to  the  children  he  met 
when  he  was  walking  out.  I  remember 
hearing  Mary  Frasier  tell  how  kind  and 
good-natured  he  was  to  her,  one  day, 
when  she  was  quite  small. 

She  was  going  to  one  of  the  neigh- 
bor's— this  was  Mary's  story — with  a 
pitcher  in  her  hand,  after  something  for 
her  mother,  when  she  met  Mr.  Daley. 

"  Good  morning,  my  dear,"  said  the 
minister,  with  a  sweet  smile  shining 
from  his  face.  "  Good  morning,  Mary. 
How  do  you  do  ?  and  how  are  they  all 
at  home  ?" 

Mary  said  she  was  almost  afraid  to 
speak  to  him,  at  first ;  but  she  supposed 


I*  PARSON    DALY    AND    THE    LITTLE    GIRL.  2b 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  27 

she  must  have  taken  courage  when  she 
looked  up  and  saw  the  sunshine  in  his 
face ;  for  she  soon  found  herself  talking 
with  the  minister  as  fast  as  if  he  had 
been  one  of  her  own  playmates.  "  Oh, 
dear !"  said  she,  "  how  sorry  I  was, 
when  he  took  my  hand,  and  said  *  good 
bye.'  I  am  not  sure  but  I  cried.  I  felt 
sad  enough  to  cry,  I  know.  Again  and 
again,  even  after  the  dear  man  had  got 
a  great  distance  from  the  place  where  he 
met  me,  I  turned  around  to  take  another 
look  at  him,  before  he  was  quite  out  of 
sight." 

And  that  reminds  me  of  another  story 
I  have  heard  about  him.     A  little  girl — 


28  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

I  don't  remember  her  name — met  Mr. 
Daley,  as  she  was  going  to  school. 

He  did  not  stop,  but  he  spoke  to  her, 
and  said,  "How  do  you  do,  little  dear?" 
or  something  of  the  sort.  I  suppose  he 
was  in  a  hurry.  He  was  always  in  a 
hurry,  when  he  was  on  his  way  to  the 
post  office,  and  very  likely  he  was  going 
to  the  post  office  then. 

The  little  girl  was  not  satisfied  with  so 
short  a  conference  with  her  minister. 
She  wanted  to  hear  him  talk  longer. 

"  Mr.  Daley,"  she  said,  faintly. 

He  stopped,  and  turned  around. 
"  Well,  my  dear  ?" 

"  I — is  the   meeting — I  mean — when 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  29 

do  the  children  have  another  meeting  ?■" 
She  alluded  to  Mr.  Daley's  custom  of 
meeting  the  children  once  in  a  while,  at 
the  school  house,  on  Saturday  afternoon, 
at  which  time  he  made  a  point  to  get 
acquainted  with  them,  and  sang  hymns 
with  them,  and  talked  kindly  with  them. 

"  Next  week,"  said  the  minister, 
kindly,  and  passed  on.  « 

Another  girl,  who  was  also  going  to 
school,  and  was  only  a  little  way  behind, 
heard  all  that  was  said. 

"  Why,  you  knew  when  the  meeting 
was  going  to  be,"  said  she,  "  as  well  as 
Mr.  Daley  did.  He  told  us  last  Sunday, 
in  the  pulpit." 


30  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

"I  know  it,"  said  the  other. 

"  Well,  what  did  you  ask  him  for  ?" 

"  Because  I  wanted  to  hear  him  talk 
to  me." 

That  was  the  honest  truth.  She 
wanted  to  hear  him  talk  to  her.  It 
did  her  good  to  hear  the  sound  of  his 
voice.  And  she  spoke  the  mind  of 
many  a  child  in  our  neighborhood,  I 
doubt  not. 

Mr.  Daley  could  do  well  one  very  de- 
sirable thing  which  so  many  ministers 
are  unable  to  do  at  all,  and  'so  many 
others  can  do  but  poorly.  He  could 
talk  to  the  children  of  his  parish  in  their 
own  language. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  31 

Why  is  it — if  I  may  stop  a  moment 
here,  to  drop  a  hint  where  it  may  possi- 
bly be  picked  up  by  some  one  in  the 
ministerial  office — why  is  it  that  such 
multitudes  of  our  best  clergymen  fail 
utterly  in  this  department  ?  Why  is  it, 
that  though  it  can  almost  be  said  of  them 
that  they  "speak  with  the  tongues  of 
men  and  of  angels,  and  have  the  gift  of 
prophecy,  and  understand  all  mysteries 
and  all  knowledge,"  they  are  dumb,  or 
might  as  well  be  dumb,  when  they  at- 
tempt to  address  the  little  lambs  of  their 
flock?  If  they  don't  understand  the 
language  of  children,  why  don't  they 
study  it  ?     "  They  don't  understand  the 


32  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

language  of  children  !"  Why  don't  they 
drill  themselves  in  the  use  of  it,  then, 
day  in  and  day  out,  if  it  is  necessary  1 
Why  they  can  speak  Latin  and  Greek ; 
aye,  and  Hebrew  and  Arabic,  for  ought 
I  know.  But  when  they  get  up  to  talk 
to  an  audience  of  bright-eyed  boys  and 
girls,  they  are  as  dull,  and  dry,  and 
prosy,  and  tedious,  as  if  they  had  eaten 
one  of  their  old  dusty  folio  volumes  for 
breakfast.  There  are  words  enough  in 
the  English  tongue  which  the  little  folks 
can  understand,  and  there  are  ways 
enough  of  putting  them  together,  so 
that  the  ideas  one  wants  to  express — or 
ce:tainly  the   ideas  to  which  he  ought  to 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  33 

confine  himself — are  as  plain  as  A  B  C, 
to  the  young  mind.  Why  don't  such 
men  learn  these  words,  if  they  never 
have  learned  them,  and  learn  the  mode 
of  stringing  them  together  for  their 
young  hearers  ? 

"  But  the  faculty  of  interesting  chil- 
dren is  natural  to  some  people.  Nature 
don't  give  it  to  everybody.  It  doesn't 
come  natural  to  me." 

Nonsense.     Neither   does  your  Latin 

come  natural   to  you,  nor  your   Greek, 

nor  your  Hebrew.     I  don't  believe  you 

was  born  with  either  of  these  languages 

flowing  very  glibly   from    your  tongue. 

The  fact  is,  you  must   come  down — not 
3 


34  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

descend,  but  come  down — to  the  dear 
young  lambs  of  your  flock.  See  what 
interests  them.  Watch  their  counte- 
nances, at  the  domestic  hearth,  while 
you  are  trying  the  effect  upon  them  of 
different  topics  and  different  modes  of 
presenting  these  topics.  Break  your 
sentences  to  pieces.  Cut  them  up. 
Lay  aside  your  words  of  Latin  and 
Greek  derivation.  "You  can't  do  it?" 
Yes,  you  can.  "  It's  an  art."  Very 
well,  learn  the  art.  Make  yourself  per- 
fect in  it.  Don't  be  afraid  that  you  will 
spoil  your  style  for  other  uses.  If  you 
should  mix  up  a  great  deal  more  Anglo- 
Saxon  in  your  sermons  than  you  now  do, 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  35 

it  would  not  hurt  them.  They  would  be 
the  better  for  it. 

But,  a  little  urchin  who  has  been  look- 
ing over  my  shoulder,  for  the  last  ten  or 
fifteen  minutes,  pulls  the  sleeve  of  my 
gown,  and  asks  me  if  it  is  not  almost 
time  for  Uncle  Frank  to  go  back  to 
"  Our  Neighbors,"  and  see  about  Parson 
Daley  and  the  Willow  Lane  youngsters. 
The  little  fellow's  hint  is  a  good  one.  I 
must  not  throw  it  away  because  it  came 
from  the  brain  of  a  child. 

I  was  saying  that  Parson  Daley  could 
talk  well  to  children  in  their  own  lan- 
guage. He  could  make  things  very 
plain  to  their  minds.     He   did  not   try 


36  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

to  teach  them  everything.  But  what  he 
did  try  to  do,  he  did,  and  did  well.  I 
don't  remember  ever  hearing  him  dis- 
course to  us  about  the  "  determination 
of  the  will,"  much  less  of  "  volition."  I 
am  quite  sure  he  never  tried  to  enlighten 
us  in  the  mysteries  of  "  innate  ideas,"  or 
the  "  vicarious  nature  of  Christ's  sacri- 
fice," or  "  retributive  justice,"  or  the 
"  divine  essence." 

What  could  we  have  understood  of 
these  things,  if  he  had  talked  about  them 
until  he  made  himself  hoarse  ?  Why 
should  children  be  expected  to  under- 
stand such  things,  any  better  than  they 
could  the  "  differential  and  integral  cal- 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  37 

cuius,"  or  the  "  precession  of  the  equi- 
noxes 7" 

I  will  give  you  a  specimen  of  the  kind 
of  things  our  minister  talked  about  to  the 
younger  members  of  his  flock,  and  the 
kind  of  words  and  sentences  he  used. 

One  morning,  as  he  was  taking  an 
early  walk,  he  happened  to  pass  by 
Doctor  Osborne's  garden.  He  looked 
over  the  fence,  and  there  he  saw  the 
Doctor's  three  boys,  George,  Henry  and 
Frank,  very  busily  engaged  weeding 
the  flower  beds.  The  little  gardeners 
stopped  work  when  they  saw  him 
coming,  and  went  to  the  garden  gate 
to  meet  him. 


38  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

"Good  morning,  my  children,"  said 
Mr.  Daley. 

"  Good  morning,  Mr.  Daley,"  said 
each  of  the  boys ;  and  they  invited  him 
to  come  into  the  garden,  and  see  the 
flowers. 

The  good  man  was  very  much  at  home 
among  all  the  people  in  his  parish.  So 
he  opened  the  gate,  and  went  into  the 
garden.  He  was  delighted  with  the 
flowers,  especially  with  some  white  lilies 
which  had  just  opened  ;  and  Henry 
broke  off  a  cluster  of  them,  and  gave 
them  to  him.  He  remarked,  as  he  took 
them,  that  "even  Solomon  in  all  his 
glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these." 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  39 

Mr.  Daley  told  them  how  good  and 
kind  God  was,  in  making  these  beautiful 
flowers,  and  in  teaching  them  to  bloom 
all  around  us.  He  told  them  that  every- 
body ought  to  love  the  Creator,  for  all 
the  gifts  he  bestows  upon  us.  Then  he 
asked  them,  what  was  God's  greatest 
gift  to  men.  They  told  him,  it  was  the 
gift  of  his  Son,  who  came  into  the  world 
to  die  for  his  enemies.  And  he  con- 
versed with  them  a  good  deal  about 
Jesus  Christ. 

Then  something  like  this  dialogue  oc- 
curred between  them  : 

F.  I  wonder  if  there  are  any  flowers 
in  heaven,  where  mother  is  now.     Mr. 


40  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Daley,  if  God  is  so  good,  I  do  not  see 
why  he  took  dear  mother  away  from  us. 
I  shall  never  be  so  happy  again  as  I 
was  before  they  put  her  into  the  grave 
yonder. 

D.  My  dear  child,  your  mother  has 
gone  to  heaven,  has  she  not  ? 

F.  I  hope  so,  sir. 

D.  Well,  then,  she  is  happier  than 
she  was  before  1 

F.  Oh  yes,  sir. 

D.  Then  you  don't  think  God  was 
unkind  to  her,  do  you  ? 

F.  No,  sir.     '. 

D.  Was  he  unkind  to  you  ? 

F.   It  seems  as  if  he  was. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 


41 


D.  My  dear  child,  did  you  love  your 
mother  while  she  was  living  ? 

F.  Yes,  sir,  very  much.  We  all 
loved  her. 

D.  Why  did  you  love  her  ? 

H.  Because  she  was  so  good. 

F.  And  because  she  was  so  kind  to 
us. 

D.  She  was  a  very  good  mother.  I 
knew  her  very  well.  No  wonder  you 
loved  her.  But  was  she  not  sometimes 
unkind  to  you  ? 

All.  No,  sir. 

D.  Did  she  not  punish  you  once  in  a 
while  ? 

G.  Yes,   sir.     But  it  was  only  when 


42  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

we  had  done  wrong.  She  did  not  pun- 
ish us  if  we  were  good  children. 

D.  That  may  be.  But  did  she  not 
hurt  you  and  make  you  cry  sometimes  ? 

G.  Yes,  sir,  sometimes  she  did. 

D.  And  did  she  not  mean  to  do  it  ? 

G.   I  suppose  she  did. 

D.  Well,  was  that  kind  in  her,  to 
make  her  children  feel  bad  and  cry  7 

G.  Yes,  sir,  She  did  not  do  it  be- 
cause she  loved  to  see  us  cry,  but  she 
wanted  to  make  us  better. 

D.  Well,  is  it  not  possible  that  God 
took  your  mother  from  you  to  make  you 
better  ? 

H.  Perhaps    so  ;    but    I    should    not 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  43 

think  he  would  take  that  way  to  make 
us  better. 

D.  Why  not? 

H.  Because  it  made  us  very  unhappy. 

F.  I  lie  awake  nights  now,  when  I 
think  how  she  was  taken  away  from  us. 

G.  I  shouldn't  think  God  would  wish 
to  make  us  cry. 

D.  But  did  not  your  mother  make  you 
cry? 

F.  She  did  so,  to  make  us  better  chil- 
dren. I  don't  see  how  God  can  do  us 
any  good,  in  taking  away  those  we  love. 

D.  What  is  the  great  business  of  life  ? 

F.  To  prepare  to  die,  and  to  be  with 
God  in  heaven. 


44  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

D.  To  be  sure  it  is.  Well,  if  you 
were  perfectly  happy  here,  and  your 
friends  did  not  die,  do  you  think  you 
that  you  would  care  much  about  God 
and  about  heaven  ? 

F.  Perhaps  not. 

D.  Does  not  heaven  seem  a  much 
more  pleasant  place  since  your  mother 
died? 

All.  Yes,  sir. 

D.  Does  this  world  seem  as  pleasant 
as  it  did  before  ? 

H.  No,  sir  ;  it  never  will  again. 

D.  Well,  can  you  not  see  how  this 
sorrow  may  do  you  some  good,  then  ? 
The  Bible  says,  "  Set  your  affections  on 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  45 

things  above,  and  not  on  things  on  the 
earth  ;"  and  if  anything  that  God  does 
tends  to  make  us  love  heavenly  things 
more,  I  am  sure  it  ought  to  make  us 
better,  and  in  the  end  happier,  too. 

F.  I  never  thought  of  that  before. 
H.  Nor  I. 

G.  Well,  I  am  sure  I  never  did.  I 
see  now  how  God  is  kind  to  us  all  the 
time. 

D.  Certainly  he  is.  Don't  you  re- 
member that  the  Bible  says,  "Whom 
the  Lord  loveth,  he  chasteneth  ?" 

H.  I  see  it  all  now. 

Then  the  good  minister,  after  express- 
ing a  desire  that  the  children  would  all 


46 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 


love  God,  and  endeavor  to  please  him, 
bade  them  good  morning,  and  went  on 
with  his  walk. 


CHAPTER   III. 

DOCTOR  WINDMAN  AND  HIS  DOSES. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  our 
doctor  to  you,  and  for  this  reason,  if  for 
no  other,  that  he  was  a  perfect  nonde- 
script. The  most  that  I  shall  attempt  in 
the  way  of  a  description,  will  be  just  to 
give  you  a  bird's-eye  glance  at  him  ;  and 
while  T  have  my  hand  in,  I  will  tell  you 
something  of  the  way  in  which  he  cured 
us  when  we  were  sick. 


48  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Doctor  Windman  seemed  always  to 
have  his  head  as  full  of  learning  as  his 
saddle-bags  were  of  medicines.  He  was 
in  the  constant  habit  of  using,  even  on 
the  most  common  occasions,  the  longest 
and  most  out-of-the-way  words,  and  of 
tying  them  together  into  the  hardest  and 
most  fantastic  knots.  A  perfect  volcano 
of  Latin  and  Greek  would  issue  from  his 
mouth  at  times. 

A  most  extraordinary  person  was  this 
Doctor  Windman.  He  was  small,  so  far 
as  his  physical  structure — borrowing,  for 
the  occasion,  a  couple  of  words  from  the 
doctor — was  concerned.  But  his  mind  ! 
to  the  youngsters  in  Willow  Lane  it  ap- 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  49 

peared  to   have   no  bounds.     To  them  it 

"  floated  large   o'er  many  a  rood,"  like 

the   arch    fiend   in    Milton's    "  Paradise 

Lost;"    and    in    the    rather     one-sided 

vision    of    these    juvenile    observers,    it 

seemed   to   have    no   bottom,    any  more 

than  the  fabled  deep  hole  in  the  middle 

of  the  mill  pond. 

I  have  seen  all  the  boys  and  girls  in 

school,   when  he   passed   by  the   school 

house,  during  the  recess  at  noon,  stop  in 

the  midst  of  their  play,  and  gaze  at  the 

doctor,  as  if  he  were  something  a  little 

more  than  human,  until  he  was  fairly  out 

of  sight.     Nor  would  they  resume  their 

sports,  they  were  so  spell-bound  by  his 
4 


50  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

learning,  even  then,  but  kept  looking 
toward  the  spot  where  he  had  disappear- 
ed from  view. 

"  And  still  they  gazed,  and  still  the  wonder  grew, 
That  one  small  head  should  carry  all  he  knew." 

I  should  judge  that  disease,  at  the 
time  and  in  the  neighborhood  of  which 
I  am  speaking,  was  considered  as  a  sort  of 
a  demon,  that  must  be  cast  out  of  a  poor 
man  at  all  hazards.  The  doctor  went 
to  work  at  his  patient,  as  a  priest  of  a 
darker  age  would  go  to  work  at  one  sup- 
posed to  be  possessed  of  a  devil.  To 
get  at  the  monster,  and  drive  him  out,  it 
was  often  necessary,  in  their  view  of  the 
case,   to  torment    the    patient  with   the 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  51 

cannonading  of  a  whole  regiment  of 
bottles,  quite  as  much  as  he  was  tor- 
mented by  the  disease.  Their  aim  was 
to  get  rid  of  the  enemy — to  get  rid  of 
him  at  any  rate.  If  they  could  turn  out 
the  evil  spirit  of  disease  so  as  not  to 
turn  out  the  spirit  of  the  man  at  the 
same  time,  all  the  better.  But  they 
considered  themselves  bound  to  storm  the 
strong-holds  of  the  disease,  and  to  drive 
drive  him  out,  at  all  events.  Our  doctor 
seldom  entered  anybody's  house  but  his 
own,  unless  disease  had  gone  in  at  the 
door,  and  he  was  summoned  to  turn  him 
out,  when  he  made  his  appearance,  in  the 
shortest  possible  space  of  time,  with  his 


52  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

saddle-bags  stuffed  with  all  sorts  of  me- 
dicines, the  very  thought  of  any  of  which 
would  bring  on  a  turn  of  nausea,  were  I 
to  name  it  to  you. 

He  was  a  very  good  man  in  a  sick 
room.  That  is — for  this  statement  must 
be  taken  with  a  trifling  limitation — he 
was  patient,  kind,  watchful,  a  capital 
nurse,  and  always  on  the  alert  to  see 
that  the  disease  did  not  get  the  upper 
hand  of  his  patient.  As  to  the  way  he 
dosed  and  drugged  the  folks,  that  is  an- 
other thing.  The  least  that  can  be  said 
of  the  quality  and  quantity  of  his  reme- 
dies, is  that  they  were  not  such  as  the 
homeopathic    doctors    would    have    ap- 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  53 

proved,  if  there  had  been  such  doctors 
in  Willow  Lane.  To  my  certain  know- 
ledge, Doctor  Windman  did  not  deal  in 
the  "  high  dilutions,"  when  he  practiced 
upon  me  for  the  whooping  cough  and 
maladies  of  that  class  and  order. 

O  what  oceans  of  rhubarb,  and  mag- 
nesia, and  glauber  salts,  and  senna,  were 
distributed  to  the  invalids  of  Willow 
Lane,  in  the  course  of  a  year  !  But  our 
doctor  was,  perhaps,  not  more  generous  in 
dealing  out  nauseous  doses  than  his  bro- 
ther physicians  were.  It  was  the  fashion 
to  punish  a  poor  follow  so  severely  for  get- 
ting sick,  that  he  would  be  pretty  sure  not 
to  get  sick  again  if  he  could  help  it. 


54  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Now  I  don't  profess  to  know  much 
about  the  theory  of  disease,  or  the  best 
way  to  get  it  out  of  a  man,  when  it  gets 
into  him.  I  belong  to  no  particular 
school.  It  would  puzzle  me,  possibly, 
to  tell  to  which  of  the  numerous  pathies 
of  the  present  age  I  most  incline.  But  I 
must  say,  with  all  proper  respect  for 
science,  that  we  Willow  Lane  folks  were 
most  unmercifully  overdosed.  Why, 
when  one  of  us  was  taken  with  ever  so 
slight  an  ailment,  and  the  doctor  was 
sent  for,  the  chances  were  that  before  we 
got  out  of  his  hands,  he  tried  the  con- 
tents of  half  the  vials  in  his  saddle-bags 
on  us,  to  say  nothing  of  the  blood  which 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  55 

flowed  from  our  veins  at  the  tap  of  his 
lancet. 

We  children  got  in  the  habit  of  dislik- 
ing the  doctor,  on  account  of  the  medi- 
cines he  gave  us  and  our  friends.  In 
spite  of  all  our  judgment,  we  could  not 
help  looking  upon  him  as  a  most  cruel 
and  unfeeling  man,  with  all  his  learning. 
We  did  not  love  him.  We  stood  in  as 
much  fear  of  him,  almost,  as  we  did  of 
that  ideal  bear  whose  portrait  appeared 
in  Webster's  spelling  book,  and  whose 
aspect,  grim  at  the  best,  was  rendered  a 
shade  or  two  more  frightful  by  the  art — 
or  rather  the  want  of  art — exhibited  by 

the  engraver. 
4 


56  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Doctor  Windman  did  not  deserve  our 
dislike,  though.  There  was  scarcely  a 
more  clever  man — I  use  this  adjective  in 
the  Willow  Lane  sense — in  the  neighbor- 
hood. He  meant  well,  certainly.  Still, 
I  could  not  bear  the  sight  of  him.  I 
remembered  too  well  that  affair  of  the 
measles ;  or  if  I  had  forgotten  that,  I 
retained  too  distinct  a  recollection  of  the 
vile  compounds  he  made  for  my  little 
sister  when  she  had  the  canker-rash. 
And  all  the  children  had  much  the  same 
notions  about  him  that  had  crept  into  my 
head.  We  did  not  like  him  at  all.  It 
was  on  this  account  that  when  we  heard 
of  a  certain  odd  and  rather  serious  acci- 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  57 

dent  that  had  happened  to  him  and  his 
medicine  bag,  a  universal  titter  went 
through  our  ranks. 

I  must  tell  you  about  that  accident. 

The  doctor  was  visiting  a  sick  girl. 
The  girl  was  not  very  much  unwell. 
There  was  some  trouble  about  her  throat. 
She  had  taken  a  little  cold,  I  believe. 
The  pulse  having  been  learnedly  and 
solemnly  felt,  the  tongue  carefully  and 
mysteriously  examined,  and  the  whole 
catalogue  of  questions  used  in  such  cases 
gravely  and  leisurely  put,  the  doctor  was 
beginning  to  rummage  his  saddle-bags 
for  the  necessary  medicines.  He  had 
the  heavily-loaded  magazine  on  his  knee. 


58  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

"  Madam,"  he  said  to  the  mother  of  the 
child,  "  this  is  a  very  complicated  affec- 
tion. The  mucous  membrane  which 
lines  the  interior  of  the  epiglottis — " 

Just  at  this  point  a  pinch  of  snuff  was 
taken,  and  the  sentence  which  the  doc- 
tor had  commenced,  which  I  have  no 
doubt  would  have  been  extremely  lu- 
minous, if  it  had  been  completed,  was 
left  awhile  quite  obscured  in  a  fog-bank ; 
for  it  was  the  practice  of  the  good  doc- 
tor to  take  his  time  when  he  went 
through  the  process  of  snuff-taking. 

It  was  one  of  the  hottest  days  of  sum- 
mer. The  doors  of  the  house  had  all 
been  thrown  open,  to  admit  of  the  freest 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  59 

possible  circulation  of  air.  Even  the 
cellar  door,  near  which  the  doctor  sat, 
with  his  saddle-bags  on  his  knee,  stood 
wide  open.  The  snuff-taking  operation 
was  drawing  to  a  close.  The  great  red 
bandanna  handkerchief,  with  diamond- 
shaped  spots  of  dingy  white,  had  been 
withdrawn  from  its  place  of  deposit, 
and  was  doing  important  service,  when  a 
huge  turkey  stalked  into  the  room,  and 
marched  fiercely  up  to  the  doctor. 

The  saucy  fellow  !  he  ought  to  have 
been  served  up  at  the  Thanksgiving  that 
occurred  the  previous  autumn.  What  a 
pity  he  was  spared.  He  had  formed  a 
habit,  it  afterward  appeared  in  evidence, 


60  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

of  showing  his  dislike  of  any  red  color, 
by  rushing  boldly  up  to  any  one  who 
happened  to  have  any  red  about  him. 
He  never  harmed  anybody.  He  gobbled 
lustily,  and  threatened  to  do  all  sorts  of 
malicious  things ;  but  that  was  the  end 
of  the  matter. 

The  doctor,  however,  not  being  ac- 
quainted with  the  true  state  of  the  case, 
and  being  terribly  scared  by  the  turkey's 
sudden  attack,  got  up  in  a  hurry,  with 
the  intention  of  making  a  retreat.  He 
started  for  the  cellar  door,  thinking,  it 
was  presumed,  that  if  he  could  once  get 
into  the  cellar,  and  have  the  door  closed 
after  him,  his  life  would  be  saved. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  61 

He  succeeded  in  reaching  the  cellar 
stairway.  But  he  had  no  sooner  set  his 
foot  on  the  top  stair  (which  was  slippery 
at  the  time,  owing  to  some  soft  soap 
having  been  spilled  upon  it)  than  he 
slipped,  and  fell  headlong,  with  his 
whole  assortment  of  bottles,  to  the  cellar 
floor. 

Strange  enough,  he  was  not  very  badly 
hurt;  but  the  damage  done  to  the  con- 
tents of  the  magazine  was  immense. 
Such  a  smashing  of  small  bottles  was 
never  known  before  in  those  parts,  and 
has  never,  to  my  knowledge,  been 
known  since. 

I  don't  know  that  a  vote  of  thanks  to 


62  PEEP   AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

that  ill-natured  turkey  was  ever  proposed 
among  the  boys  and  girls  in  Willow 
Lane  ;  but,  such  was  our  defective 
standard  of  judgment,  that  I  am  certain 
the  vote  would  have  been  unanimous,  if 
it  had  been  proposed. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

HUNTING   HENS'  NESTS. 

There  was  no  task  so  pleasant  to  me, 
while  I  lived  on  a  farm,  as  hunting  hens' 
nests.  Feeding  the  chickens,  and  taking 
care  of  the  cosset  lambs,  gave  me  almost 
as  much  pleasure,  but  not  quite,  I  think. 
There  was  something  exciting  about  the 
business  of  exploring  the  barn,  the  wood 
house,  and  the  entire  premises,  in  fact, 
and  being  rewarded,  after  a  noisy  out- 


64  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

burst  of  cackling,  by  a  whole  hatful  of 
eggs. 

In  these  explorations,  I  was  generally 
attended  by  my  brother,  only  a  little 
younger  than  myself,  who  relished  the 
sport  quite  as  much  as  I  did  myself. 
There  is  a  story  of  rather  a  tragic  na- 
ture connected  with  one  of  these  hunting 
excursions,  which  I  have  a  mind  to  tell 
you.  There  is  a  little  bit  of  wisdom 
wrapped  up  in  the  tale,  which,  when  the 
tale  is  unfolded,  I  hope  you  will  find  and 
profit  by.  I  say  I  hope  you  will  profit 
by  it ;  for,  after  all,  what  is  wisdom 
worth,  even  if  you  should  get  your  head 
as  full  of  it  as  Solomon's  was,  if  you  do 


HUNTING    HENS'   NESTS. 


65 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  67 

not  make  some  use  of  it  ?  Not  much,  I 
am  sure.  Dogs  and  cats,  rats  and  mice, 
squirrels  and  rabbits,  geese  and  ducks — 
all  these  animals,  though  they  do  not  get 
hold  of  so  much  knowledge  as  we  have, 
generally  use  what  little  knowledge  they 
do  get.  They  make  the  most  of  it. 
When  they  have  learned  a  good  lesson, 
they  remember  it.  It  is  not  necessary, 
in  most  cases,  to  keep  teaching  the  same 
lesson,  over  and  over  again,  to  the  same 
dog,  for  instance,  after  he  has  once  got  it 
by  heart.  Even  the  goose,  whom  we 
are  in  the  habit  of  calling  a  very  stupid 
creature,  when  she  has  learned  a  lesson, 
generally  keeps  it  in  mind,  and  practices 


68  PEEP   AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

it.  I  knew  of  a  whole  flock  of  geese 
once,  who  got  as  drunk  as  fools,  eating 
cherries  that  had  been  soaked  in  rum. 
But  nobody  could  ever  make  a  single 
goose  in  that  flock  eat  such  things  after 
that.  They  had  been  drunk  once. 
That  was  sufficient  for  them.  What  a 
pity  that  all  the  members  of  the  human 
family  did  not  profit  by  what  they  learn, 
as  these  geese  did  by  their  knowledge. 

But  I  am  getting  off  on  this  "  wild 
goose  chase"  too  far,  and  I  must  come 
straight  back  to  the  story. 

The  interior  of  our  barn — and  I  am 
not  sure  but  the  same  could  be  said  of  all 
the  barns  in  our  neighborhood — had  on 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  69 

each  side  of  the  wide  open  space,  called 
the  "  barn  floor,"  two  high  beams,  run- 
ning horizontally,  the  whole  length  of 
the  building.  These  beams  were  some 
twenty  feet,  perhaps,  from  the  floor. 
When  the  hay  was  all  in,  the  mows  on 
each  side  of  the  barn  floor  reached  as 
high  as  these  great  beams,  though,  as  the 
hay  was  generally  taken  away  during  the 
winter,  of  course  the  distance  from  the 
hay  mow  to  the  beams  increased.  In 
the  middle  of  the  winter,  I  recollect,  it 
always  seemed  a  great  feat  to  jump  from 
the  high  beam  to  the  mow,  as  Peter,  my 
father's  hired  man,  used  sometimes  to 
do,  for  the  amusement,  he  said,  of  the 


70  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

"  little  shavers."  Some  loose  ^pieces  of 
timber  were  placed  on  the  high  beams, 
in  the  fall  of  the  year,  reaching  across 
the  barn  floor,  from  one  beam  to  the 
other.  These  timbers  formed  a  tempo- 
rary scaffold,  on  which  they  placed 
bundles  of  rye  and  oats,  before  they 
were  threshed. 

You  will  readily  see  that  this  scaffold 
was  not  a  safe  place  for  boys.  Besides 
the  danger  of  sliding  off,  there  was  also 
danger  that  the  timbers  would  spread 
apart,  so  as  to  let  a  person  through.  We 
boys  were  cautioned,  again  and  again,  of 
the  danger  of  that  scaffold,  and  forbidden 
to  go  there  on  any  account  whatever. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  71 

While  hunting  for  hens'  nests  in  the 
barn,  it  used,  nevertheless,  to  seem  a 
great  pity  to  me,  that  we  could  not  pur- 
sue our  researches  on  that  forbidden 
ground.  "What  a  host  of  eggs  there 
must  be  on  the  scaffold,"  I  thought. 

One  day,  when  we  were  not  so  sue- 
cessful  in  our  hunting  excursion  as  usual, 
a  very  meagre  collection  of  eggs  having 
resulted  from  a  search  of  a  couple  of 
hours,  my  thoughts  were  drawn  so 
strongly  toward  the  scaffold,  that  I  could 
hardly  turn  them  in  any  other  direction. 

"  I  wonder  how  many  eggs  there  are 
on  the  scaffold  V9  I  inquired  of  my 
brother. 


72  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

"  I  guess  about  a  hatful,"  was  the 
answer. 

"A  hatful!"  I  exclaimed;  "pooh! 
more  likely  half  a  bushel."  I  was 
rather  a  sanguine  boy. 

"But  there's  no  use  talking  about 
the  scaffold,"  my  brother  said.  "We 
couldn't  go  there,  you  know,  if  the 
whole  scaffold  was  covered  with  eggs." 

I  thought  otherwise.  "  I  don't  be- 
lieve the  folks  know  what  lots  of  eggs 
there  are  among  those  bundles  of  rye,"  I 
said. 

"  But,"  said  my  brother,  I  shouldn't 
wonder  if  they  knew  one  thing  about 
that  scaffold,  better  than  we  do." 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  73 

"  What's  that  ?"  I  asked. 

"  They  know  that  it  is  rather  a  dan- 
gerous place,"  was  the  reply. 

"  But  Peter  goes  there,"  said  I. 

"  Peter  is  a  man,"  said  my  brother. 

At  that  remark  I  remember  I  laughed. 
I  laughed  to  think  that  Peter  could  per- 
form any  feat  in  the  way  of  climbing, 
which  I  dared  not  attempt.  Boys  have 
often  great  confidence  in  themselves. 
As  they  grow  older,  and  gradually  draw 
nearer  the  period  of  manhood,  they  are 
apt  to  think  less  and  less  of  themselves. 
My  confidence  in  myself,  on  this  occa- 
sion, was  not  courage.  It  was  not  hero- 
ism. It  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  It 
5 


74  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

was  something  for  which  I  deserved  a 
great  deal  more  censure  than  praise. 

I  finally  reasoned  my  brother  into  the 
conclusion  that,  on  the  whole,  it  was  best 
to  climb  up  to  the  scaffold ;  or,  rather,  I 
talked  to  him  till  he  had  used  up  all  his 
arguments,  for  I  hardly  think  he  was 
altogether  convinced  that  I  was  right. 
We  arranged  everything  in  our  own 
minds,  so  that  our  parents  would  never 
know  that  we  had  climbed  the  scaffold. 
They  would  wonder,  we  knew,  where 
we  got  such  a  large  quantity  of  eggs. 
But  we  were  going  to  deal  out  our  infor- 
mation as  physcians  of  a  certain  school 
deal  out  medicines  to  their  patients — in 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  75 

very  small  doses.  That  matter  was  all 
arranged. 

The  next  step  was  to  mount  the  lad- 
der. It  was  thought  best,  by  all  means, 
to  take  up  two  hats.  One  hat,  we 
thought,  would  be  hardly  sufficient  to 
hold  all  the  eggs.  So  up  I  started, 
holding  on  tight  to  the  rounds  of  the 
ladder  with  both  hands,  and  as  tight  to 
the  brims  of  both  hats  with  my  teeth. 

In  spite  of  myself,  somehow  or  other, 
I  felt  my  courage  oozing  out  of  my  fin- 
gers and  toes,  as  I  went  up  the  ladder. 
I  trembled  a  little,  I  guess.  But  I  went 
on.  I  had  no  notion  of  being  scared  out 
of  an  expedition  which  promised  a  peck 


76  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

of  hens'  eggs,  at  the  least,  and  possibly- 
half  a  bushel. 

Yes,  I  went  on.  But  when  I  got  to 
the  top  of  the  ladder,  which  rested  on 
the  great  beam,  I  began  to  think  that 
our  Peter  was  a  brave  fellow,  and  that 
the  feat  I  had  undertaken  was  probably 
the  greatest  on  record.  I  hesitated,  and 
then  climbed,  as  boldly  as  I  could,  in 
the  circumstances,  upon  the  great  beam, 
from  which  I  stepped  to  the  scaffold. 

I  looked  down.  Oh,  how  high  that 
scaffold  seemed  !  What  a  distance  to 
the  barn  floor  !  From  the  moment  my 
eye  fell  upon  the  place  where  my 
brother  was  standing,  fear  took  the  en- 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  77 

tire  control  of  me,  and  knocked  every 
other  thought  and  idea  out  of  my  head. 
The  hats — so  I  was  told  afterward, 
though  I  could  not  have  been  sensible 
of  it  at  the  time— fell  to  the  floor,  at  the 
moment  that  I  turned  to  look  down- 
ward. 

My  memory  of  what  took  place  after 
I  stepped  upon  the  scaffold,  is  very  con- 
fused and  misty.  I  remember  looking 
down.  I  remember,  too,  that  I  felt 
sick ;  that  everything  began  to  go  round 
and  round,  and  that  I  went  round  and 
round  with  everything ;  that  sometimes  I 
was  on  the  floor,  sometimes  on  the  mow, 
sometimes  on  the  scaffold,  and  sometimes 


78  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

among  the  wasps'  nests,  where  the  raf- 
ters came  together ;  that  I  wondered 
how  the  barn  came  to  tumble  over,  and 
how  it  came  to  stand  up  again,  and  how 
the  bundles  of  rye  could  stay  on  the  scaf- 
fold, and  why  T  could  stay  on  myself — 
and 

It  was  very  hazy  after  that,  very  hazy 
indeed. 

The  next  thing  I  remember  now,  the 
next  thing  I  remembered  then,  was  that 
I  was  lying  on  a  bed,  and  a  strange-look- 
ing man,  with  a  strange-looking  pen- 
knife, was  sitting  close  to  me  and  pinch- 
ing my  wrist.  I  don't  know  exactly 
how  a  cat  in  a  strange  garret  feels.     I 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  79 

don't  know  that  anybody  knows,  though 
it  is  a  very  common  thing  to  hear  people 
talk  about  feeling  "  as  queer  as  a  cat  in 
a  strange  garret."  /  don't  pretend  to 
determine  the  precise  nature  of  the  sen- 
sations that  fill  Puss'  bosom,  when  she 
suddenly  finds  herself  in  an  upper  apart- 
ment where  she  has  never  been  before. 
But  I  can  say,  and  I  will  say,  that  if  she 
is  any  more  bewildered  at  such  a  time 
than  I  was  when  I  saw  Doctor  Wind- 
man — for  it  turned  out  that  it  was  the 
doctor — sitting  there  with  his  lancet  in 
one  hand,  and  my  wrist  in  the  other, — if 
she  is  any  more  bewildered  than  I  was, 
I  pity  her. 


80  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

And  my  head  ached,  too.  How  hap- 
pened that  ?  And  my  arm  was  lame. 
What  did  that  mean  ?  Had  I  hurt  it  ? 
I  tried  to  turn  over  in  the  bed.  I 
couldn't  do  anything  of  the  kind.  I 
seemed  to  have  been  put  into  a  barrel 
and  pounded,  as  Amanda  Lounsbury 
pounded  the  clothes,  in  the  process  of 
washing.     What  did  all  this  mean  ? 

I  found  out  what  it  all  meant — not  im- 
mediately, but  after  a  while.  I  found 
out  that  I  had  fallen  from  the  scaffold 
down  to  the  floor ;  that  I  was  badly  hurt 
by  the  fall ;  that  my  brother  had  alarmed 
the  folks  in  the  house;  that  they  had 
carried  me  into  the  kitchen,  and  made  up 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  81 

a  bed  for  me  there ;  that  Doctor  Wind- 
man  had  been  sent  for;  that  he  had 
come  and  bled  me ;  that  everybody  was 
alarmed  ;  that  the  doctor  had  not  said 
much,  but  that  he  looked  as  if  he  was  a 
good  deal  worried  about  me — alas!  I 
knew  that;  I  saw  that  look — and  had 
shaken  his  head  when  my  father  asked 
him  how  badly  I  was  hurt ;  that  Peter 
had  gone  to  Northville  for  another  doc- 
tor ;  and,  in  short,  that  I  was  likely  to 
have  a  pretty  severe  time  of  it. 

I  leave  you  to  judge  how  I  felt,  when 
I  learned  all  this.  The  pain  in  my  head 
and  limbs  was  not  all  the  pain  I  suffer- 
ed— no,  not  by  a  good  deal.     There  was 


82  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

something  in  my  breast  which  seemed  to 
say  :  "  This  is  what  you  get  by  disobe- 
dience. You  deserve  it  all,  and  more." 
Oh,  how  that  thought  tortured  me  ! 

It  was  a  long  time — I  do  not  remem- 
ber how  long,  but  it  seemed  an  age, 
and  I  believe  it  was  some  two  or  three 
months — before  I  could  walk  in  the  door 
yard ;  and  for  some  time  after  that,  I 
had  to  hobble  about,  like  an  old  horse 
who  has*got  the  spring  halt. 

J?rom  the  day  of  that  unfortunate  fall, 
uiftil  I  became  almost  as  large  as  Peter, 
the  territory  in*»hich  I  hunted  for  hens' 
nests  never  embraced  the  high  scaffold. 


CHAPTER  X. 

CLIMBING  THE  PEACH  TREE. 

My  friend  Laura  was  in  my  room  a 
day  or  two  after  I  had  written  the  story 
of  my  sad  adventure  in  the  barn  at  Wil- 
low Lane ;  and  she  took  up  the  manu- 
script which  was  lying  on  my  table,  and 
read  it. 

"How  much  this  s4*ry  makes  me 
think  of  a  little  incident. in  my  own  ex- 
rience,"   said   she.     And  then  she  told 


84  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

me  how,  when  she  was  a  little  girl,  there 
was  a  peach  tree  near  the  school  house ; 
that  the  man  who  owned  the  tree  al- 
lowed the  children  to  pick  up  the 
peaches  that  dropped  on  the  ground, 
but  that  he  did  not  permit  them  to  climb 
the  tree,  or  to  knock  off  any  of  the 
peaches;  that  the  good  school  mistress 
told  the  children  what  the  rules  were, 
but  that  the  mischievous  Laura  disobeyed 
them,  and  paid,  as  children  are  so  apt  to 
do,  very  dearly  for  her  disobedience. 

"Laura,"  I  said,  "let  me  have  the 
story  for  my  book." 

"Why,  you  have  got  one  of  your  own 
very  nearly  like  it,"  said  she. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  85 

"True,"  I  replied,  "but  my  story  is 
for  the  boys.  I'm  afraid  some  of  the 
girls  who  read  my  book,  will  not  learn 
the  lesson  there  is  in  it,  but  will  shift  it 
off  upon  the  boys." 

"  But,"  said  Laura,  "  my  story  has 
nothing  to  do  with  Willow  Lane,  or  any 
of  the  Willow  Lane  people." 

"  Never  mind  that,"  said  I ;  "  you 
write  the  story,  and  I'll  settle  the  rest 
with  the  boys  and  girls." 

Well,  Laura  consented,  for  fear  the 
girls  would  not  profit  enough  by  my 
story,  to  write  down  this  little  incident 
in  her  experience.  So  she  seated  her- 
self at  my  table,  and  in  the  course  of  an 


86  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

hour  she  surprised  me  not  a  little  by 
reading  her  tale  in  verse.  Here  it  is. 
Read  it,  girls,  and  learn  the  lesson  which 
it  teaches : 


THE    MAIDEN'S    WARNING. 


Oh  list,  ye  maidens,  one  and  all, 
Take  warning  by  my  luckless  fall ; 
Take  warning  from  this  aching  head, 
And  from  this  slow  and  limping  tread. 

Take  warning  from  my  gown  all  rent, 
And  from  my  locks  in  tangles  blent ; 
Take  warning  from  these  tearful  eyes, 
And  from  these  sad  repentant  sighs. 

Oh,  hearken  always  to  the  rule ; 
Pare  not  to  slight  the  law  of  school, 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  87 

Else,  oft,  like  me,  you'll  shun  the  light, 
When  caught  in  such  a  woful  plight. 

This  morn,  when  first  my  feet  took  way, 
To  spend  at  school  the  pleasant  day, 
How  smoothly  combed  my  chestnut  hair  ! 
How  shone  my  dress  with  Betty's  care  ! 

My  apron  and  my  kerchief  too, 
Were  trim  as  could  be  found  on  you  ; 
Yet  now  you  scarce  can  smiles  restrain, 
To  see  them  almost  torn  in  twain. 

Command  how  oft  dear  teacher  laid 
"  Ne'er  climb  the  tree,  a  single  maid ;" 
Unhappy,  I  first  gave  offence — 
Mark  well  the  direful  consequence. 

As  'neath  a  peach  tree  tall  I  stood, 
And  mused  upon  the  fruit  so  good, 
One  fairer  than  the  rest  I  spied, 
With  ruddy  cheeks  upon  its  side. 


88  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

"  It  shall  be  mine,"  methought ;  but,  oh  ! 
The  branch  was  high,  my  stature  low  ; 
'Twas  formed  above  my  humble  reach, 
The  much  desired,  the  downy  peach. 

"  But  let  me  bring  it  here  ;"  and  quick 
I  threw  up  many  a  stone  and  stick  ; 
Which  now  and  then,  as  they  came  down, 
Would  glance  upon  my  luckless  crown. 

All  vain,  unharmed  by  stone  or  wood, 
The  tempting  fruit  in  glory  stood  ; 
"  I'll  scale  the  tree  ;  the  branch  I'll  clasp  ; 
No  more  shall  it  elude  my  grasp." 

"  Forbear,"  cried  Conscience,  in  mine  ear, 
"  Forbear,  you'll  danger  see,"  cried  Fear: 
I  heeded  not,  but  took  in  count 
The  easiest  way  thereon  to  mount. 

Graining  by  little  or  no  toil, 

The  branch  which  held  the  tempting  spoil, 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  89 

'Twas  surely  mine  !  as  'twere  a  gem, 
I  reached  to  pluck  it  from  the  stem. 

Yet  now  a  serious  ill  forbode  ; 
My  foothold  trembled  'neath  its  load — 
The  tottering  branchlet  broke  and  fell — 
My  saddened  mien  the  rest  can  tell. 

Oh  list  ye  maidens,  one  and  all  j 
Take  warning  from  my  luckless  fall ; 
Beware,  and  break  not  e'en  one  rule, 
That  helps  to  form  the  code  of  school. 
6 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  BALL   FAMILY. 

Captain  Ball  was  a  notorious  charac- 
ter among  us,  and  his  family  were  noto- 
rious, too.  We  will  have  a  peep  at 
them,  if  you  please.  The  captain  lived 
on  the  hill — not  the  hill  on  which  the 
school  house  stood,  recollect,  but  the 
high  one  on  the  other  side  of  the  great 
brook.  I  believe  it  went  by  the  name 
of    Breakneck   Hill,    among    the    older 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  91 

people,    because    it   was   so    frightfully 
steep. 

You  will  think  that  all  the  folks  in 
Willow  Lane  had  their  names  spliced 
with  some  sort  of  title  or  other.  And 
you  will  think  pretty  nearly  right.  I 
can  hardly  remember  one  full  grown 
man  that  had  not  some  handle  to  his 
name.  How  some  of  the  men  came  by 
the  title  they  were  so  generally  known 
by,  is  much  more  than  I  can  tell,  and 
probably  more  than  anybody  can  tell. 
Jonathan  Ball,  however,  had  a  good  right 
to  his  title.  He  was  the  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  Willow  Lane  militia, 
and   led   that  valiant  band   on  training 


92  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

days.  That  is  to  say,  he  led  those 
soldiers  as  well  as  anybody  could  lead 
them.  They  were  a  little  awkward,  and 
not  under  perfect  discipline. 

Shall  I  tell  you  an  anecdote,  just  here, 
of  one  of  Captain  Ball's  desperate  efforts 
in  drilling  his  soldiers  ?  The  "  Penny- 
royal Guard" — so  the  company  was 
known  out  of  Willow  Lane,  in  that  sec- 
tion of  the  country — were  drawn  up  on 
the  green,  in  front  of  the  old  brick' 
meeting  house,  and  there  were  a  good 
many  people  looking  on.  Captain  Ball 
was  a  little  proud  of  his  company,  and 
he  wanted  they  should  do  their  very 
best  at  this  time.      "  Willow  Lane  ex- 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  93 

pects  every  man  to  do  his  duty  to-day," 
he  said. 

"  Form  a  line  !"  he  roared  out.  That 
was  not  quite  so  easy  a  matter.  They 
got  into  a  perfect  hard  knot,  at  last ;  and 
it  was  a  great  deal  more  than  the  captain, 
with  the  aid  of  all  his  corporals,  could  do 
to  get  the  knot  untied.  Poor  man  !  he 
was  humbled  and  vexed ;  and  again  he 
thundered,  as  if  his  military  honor  was 
all  staked  on  that  one  last  order,  "  Form 
a  line  !  every  man  form  a  line  !" 

If  you  will  promise  me  one  thing,  I 
will  let  you  into  a  secret,  little  friend. 
Promise  that  you  will  try  to  profit  by  the 
lessons  you  learn  from  this  sketch  of  the 


94  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Ball  Family,  and  I  will  tell  you  just 
what  Captain  Ball's  faults  were ;  for 
he  had  faults,  and  they  were  such  as 
everybody  ought  to  try  hard  to  keep 
clear  of. 

He  was  not  a  bad  man.  He  never 
took  to  drinking,  as  I  am  sorry  to  say  too 
many  of  the  farmers  in  Willow  Lane  did. 
He  was  temperate.  There  was  not  a 
better  neighbor  in  the  place  than  Jona- 
than Ball.  His  great  faults  were  that  he 
was  lazy,  and  that  he  did  not  stick  to 
one  thing.  Now,  though  I  am  not  sure 
that  he  ever  would  have  made  a  very 
good  militia  captain,  at  the  best,  if  he  had 
tried  ever  so  hard  and  so  long,  yet  he 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  95 

would  have  done  much  better,  if  he  had 
taken  pains  to  drill  himself  before  he 
undertook  to  drill  his  men. 

He  was  a  farmer.  He  had  a  pretty 
good  farm,  for  Willow  Lane.  But  he 
was  always  behind  hand  in  his  work. 
He  did  not  get  to  ploughing  in  the 
spring,  until  most  of  his  neighbors  had 
done.  To  be  sure,  he  had  excuses  for 
his  delay,  a  plenty  of  them.  He  was 
never  in  want  of  excuses.  When  he 
came  to  harvest  his  corn,  and  rye,  and 
potatoes,  of  course  he  found  that .  his 
crops  had  not  turned  out  so  well  as  they 
would  have  done,  if  his  affairs  had  been 
managed  correctly.     The  fact  is,  he  was 


96  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

always  unfortunate.  Let  him  attempt  to 
do  what  he  might,  he  had  "  bad  luck," 
to  use  his  own  words,  though  I  do  not 
like  them,  and  never  did. 

I  have  known  the  captain  in  haying 
time,  when  the  weather  was  very  hot, 
sit  under  a  tree  in  the  meadow,  and 
smoke  a  .pipe  for  more  than  half  an  hour, 
when  there  was  a  thunder  shower  coming 
on,  and  he  must  have  known  that  it  was 
quite  as  much  as  he  and  his  men  could  do 
to  get  the  hay  raked  up  before  the  rain 
began  to  pour  down,  even  if  they  had  all 
worked  like  beavers  every  moment  of 
the  time. 

He  was  almost — not  quite,  T  confess — 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  97 

as  lazy  as  the  man  I  heard  of  down  east. 
That  man  was  very  fond  of  fishing.  He 
liked  the  sport,  but  was  too  lazy  to  pull 
the  fish  out  of  the  water.  So  he  used  to 
go  down  to  the  water,  with  his  horse  and 
wagon;  and  when  he  got  to  the  place 
where  the  large  black  fish  lived,  he 
would  back  up  his  wagon  as  near  as  he 
could  to  the  water's  edge,  and  throw 
over  his  line.  When  the  black  fish  took 
hold  of  his  hook,  he  would  whip  up,  and 
let  his  horse  draw  the  fish  out  of  the 
water. 

Captain  Ball  never  did  that.  At  least, 
I  never  heard  of  his  doing  it.  But  I  will 
tell   you   what   he    did    do    once.     Mr. 


98  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Packer — Peter  Packer,  the  man  who 
rode  the  pacing  mare,  and  who  brought 
around  the  newspaper  once  a  week — was 
passing  by  Captain  Ball's  garden  one  hot 
day,  and  happening  to  look  over  the 
fence,  he  saw  the  captain  weeding  his 
onion  bed.  And  how  do  you  think  he 
got  the  weeds  up  1  I  shall  have  to  tell 
you  ;  for  I  don't  believe  you  would  guess 
how  the  thing  was  done,  if  you  were  to 
rack  your  brains  about  it  for  twenty 
years.  He  sat  in  his  rocking  chair,  and 
rocked  forward  to  get  hold  of  the  weed, 
and  backward  to  pull  it  up.  Don't  you 
think  he  ought  to  have  had  a  patent  for 
that  way  of  weeding  onion  beds  ? 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  99 

Captain  Ball  built  a  saw-mill.  Every- 
body said  he  did  it  because  he  thought 
he  would  have  an  easy  time  of  it,  sitting 
still,  all  day  long,  and  watching  the 
great  logs  as  they  moved  slowly  toward 
the  saw.  But  I  don't  know  how  that 
was. 

When  the  mill  was  done,  or  when  he 
thought  it  was  done,  he  got  all  the  Wil- 
low Lane  men  and  boys  together,  to  see 
him  let  on  the  water,  and  saw  the  first 
log.  Well,  the  water  was  let  on,  and 
the  wheel  went  round.  But  for  some 
reason  or  other,  the  saw  would  not  go. 
It  would  not  stir  an  inch.  You  could 
not  imagine  a  more  obstinate  saw  than 


100  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

that  was.  I  never  heard  what  was  the 
matter  with  the  mill.  But  I  remember 
well  that  Captain  Ball  got  sick  of  it.  He 
never  made  another  trial  to  get  the  saw 
agoing,  after  that  day.  He  was  not  the 
man  to  stick  to  anything,  especially  if 
there  was  any  trouble  or  hard  work 
about  it. 

When  I  last  saw  that  mill — I  don't 
mean  when  I  last  sawed  with  it,  for 
there  was  never  any  sawing  done  there — 
when  I  last  saw  that  mill,  it  was  a  per- 
fect wreck.  It  was  all  tumbling  to 
pieces.  As  I  stopped  a  moment  to  look 
at  it,  and  thought  of  its  history,  it  seem- 
ed like  a  monument,   put  up  there  to 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  101 

warn  everybody  of  the  evils  of  laziness, 
and  of  the  habit  of  leaving  things  half 
done. 

Captain  Ball  showed  his  lazy  habits  on 
the  Sabbath,  as  well  as  on  week  days. 
Almost  as  soon  as  he  got  into  the 
meeting  house — we  had  no  churches  in 
that  part  of  the  country  where  I  was 
brought  up  ;  houses  of  worship  were  all 
meeting  houses — almost  as  soon  as  he  got 
into  the  meeting  house,  and  took  his 
seat,  he  went  to  sleep,  and  he  frequently 
slept,  it  seemed  to  me,  through  all  the 
sermon.  I  never  could  see  what  good  it 
did  him  to  go  to  meeting  at  all. 

Would  you  believe  it  ?     He  frequently 


102  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

got  fast  asleep,  when  he  was  standing 
up.  We  always  stood  up,  by  the  way, 
in  prayer  time.  One  afternoon,  when 
the  prayer  was  a  little  longer  than 
usual — rather  too  long,  we  children 
thought — Captain  Ball  lost  his  balance, 
and  over  he  pitched  into  the  broad  aisle. 
He  came  down  with  a  great  crash,  for  he 
was  a  fat,  heavy  man — lazy  folks  are  apt 
to  be  fat,  you  know — and  there  he  lay, 
as  flat  as  a  flounder,  on  the  floor.  What 
a  tittering  went  round  the  meeting  house, 
when  the  boys  found  out  the  meaning  of 
that  noise. 

But  the  joke  did  not  end  here.     A 
good  many  of  the  people  thought  that 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  103 

the  captain  had  fainted  away,  or  that  he 
had  been  seized  with  a  fit.  So  two  or 
three  strong  men  ran  up  to  him,  before 
he  had  time  to  get  wide  awake,  to  find 
out  where  he  was  and  what  had  really 
happened,  and  took  him  up,  and  carried 
him  out  into  the  open  air. 

Captain  Ball  never  heard  the  last  of 
that  affair,  until  he  died.  It  was  all  the 
talk  for  a  while,  and  everybody  in  Wil- 
low Lane  felt  at  liberty  to  have  a  good 
laughing  spell  at  the  poor  man's  expense. 
His  fall  broke  up  his  sleeping  in  meet- 
ing for  a  time,  though  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  he  finally  got  back  again  to  his  old 
habit. 


104  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Captain  Ball  had  no  curb  to  his  well. 
He  was  always  thinking  about  doing  it, 
and  making  up  his  mind  that  he  would 
do  it ;  but  he  never  set  himself  about  it. 
One  of  the  neighbors  ventured  to  hint  to 
him  that  the  well  was  not  safe.  "  Per- 
haps not,"  he  said,  with  a  yawn,  "  but  I 
have  had  it  so  more  than  fifteen  years, 
and  there  haven't  been  but  two  drowned 
in  it,  and  one  of  them  was  a  mere  child." 

The  well  curb  was  never  built  in  the 
captain's  day,  I  believe. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

CHIPS   OF   THE   OLD  BLOCK. 

Captain  Ball's  children  had  very- 
poor  bringing  up.  I  might  almost  say 
they  came  up  themselves. 

I  never  had  such  a  perfect  horror  of 
any  one  person  in  my  life,  as  I  had  of 
Joe  Ball,  the  oldest  of  the  boys.  I  had 
some  reason  to  be  afraid  of  him,  as  you 
will  see  when  you  learn  what  he  did  to 
me  once.     I  will  tell  you  how  it  was. 


106  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

I  was  coming  home  from  the  store  one 
day,  where  I  had  been  of  an  errand, 
when  I  came  across  Joe.  He  had  been 
playing  ball,  and  was  just  going  toward 
home.  I  had  bought  "  Robinson  Cru- 
soe," I  recollect,  with  some  money 
which  I  had  got  by  selling  my  pet 
squirrel,  who  had  become  so  mischievous 
that  my  father  would  not  let  me  keep 
him  any  longer.  I  was  walking  along 
leisurely,  reading  that  book,  when  Joe 
came  up  to  me, 

"  Ah,  you  little  imp  !"  said  he ;  "  I've 
got  you  now.  I'll  give  it  to  you  for 
that." 

I  was  not  so  happy  as  to  know  what 


**» 


JOE    AND   HIS   VICTIM. 


108 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  109 

that  meant ;  and  so  I  asked  him  if  he 
would  be  so  good  as  to  tell  me  what  I 
had  done  to  displease  him. 

"  You  pretend  not  to  know,  do  you  V9 
said  he.  "  I'll  teach  you.  You'll  find 
out  that  you've  got  a  pretty  hard  fellow 
to  deal  with,  when  you  cross  my  track, 
you  little  tell-tale." 

And  he  struck  me  a  blow  on  the  side 
of  my  head  so  hard  that  it  almost  stunned 
me,  and  made  my  head  ache  all  that  day 
and  most  of  the  night. 

"  There !"  he  said,  "  that  will  teach 
you  better  than  to  peach  on  Joe  Ball." 

I  could  not  understand  in  what  way  I 
bad  "  crossed  the  track"  of  Joe  Ball.     I 


110  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

thought  I  had  kept  as  far  away  from  him 
as  possible ;  I  always  meant  to  do  so. 
Nor  did  I  know  what  peaching  meant. 
Until  that  time,  I  had,  it  so  happened, 
never  met  the  verb  to  peach.  I  learned, 
however,  from  a  word  or  two  which  Joe 
added,  that  peaching  was  playing  the 
part  of  the  tell-tale.  My  crime,  it  ap- 
peared, was  telling  the  schoolmaster  who 
pelted  the  old  school  house  with  spoiled 
eggs — a  piece  of  information  which  cost 
Joe  the  hardest  flogging,  I  suppose,  that 
he  ever  got  in  his  life.  Now  it  so  hap- 
pened that,  until  Joe  Ball  got  whipped, 
I  did  not  know  or  suspect  that  he  threw 
the  eggs ;  nor   do   I   know  to   this  day 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  Ill 

who  told  the  schoolmaster.     I  know  that 
I  did  not  tell  him. 

After  this  adventure  with  Joe  Ball,  I 
lived  in  almost  as  much  fear  of  him  as  if 
he  had  been  a  mad  dog  or  a  hyena. 

It  was  a  very  rare  thing  to  see  either 
Simeon  or  Randolph — Captain  Ball's 
youngest  boys,  who  were  not  far  from 
my  own  age — without  holes  in  their 
stockings,  and  their  elbows  seemed  al- 
ways to  have  a  habit  of  bursting  through 
the  sleeves  of  their  jackets.  And  they 
were  all  three  such  ill-natured  and  quar- 
relsome fellows,  that  all  the  children  in 
school  disliked  them. 

The  reason  they  acted  so  badly,  was 


112 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 


that  their  father  had  not  patience  and 
energy  enough  to  bring  them  up  properly, 
I  suppose.  I  don't  know  what  other 
reason  there  was  for  it. 


.;-^^^^^^te 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   DROWNED   GIRL. 

Simeon  was  a  very  passionate  boy. 
He  seemed  to  have  hardly  any  control 
over  himself,  when  he  got  angry.  He 
did  a  terrible  thing  once,  in  the  heat  of 
passion.  A  relative  of  the  Ball  family — 
a  cousin,  I  believe,  of  Captain  Ball's  chil- 
dren— had  come  on  from  Boston,  and 
was  staying  for  a  few  weeks  in  Willow 
Lane.     She  had  brought  a  bathing  dress 


114  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

with  her ;  and  one  fine  day,  she  went 
over  to  the  pond,  with  Simeon  and  his 
younger  brother,  and  went  in  to  bathe. 
She  was  rather  timid,  and  Simeon,  who 
could  swim,  kept  hold  of  her  hand  while 
she  was  in  the  water. 

Simeon  knew  nothing  about  fear  him- 
self, and  he  thought  it  was  very  foolish 
for  his  cousin  Margaret  to  be  afraid.  He 
laughed  at  her,  and  tried  to  persuade  her 
to  go  farther  from  the  shore,  where  the 
water  was  deeper.  But  Margaret  re- 
fused to  go.  After  trying  a  long  time  to 
persuade  the  timid  girl  to  go  into  the 
deep  water,  he  got  angry ;  and  in  a  mo- 
ment, before  he  took  time  to  think  of 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  115 

what  he  was  doing,  he  gave  her  a  rude 
push,  and  said,  "  There !  you  shall  go, 
whether  you  want  to  or  not." 

Margaret  lost  her  balance,  and  fell 
where  the  water  was  deep.  Her  pres- 
ence of  mind  was  all  gone.  Else,  per- 
haps, she  could  have  helped  herself  so 
far  as  not  to  have  sunk  under  the  water. 
But  as  it  was,  she  went  down,  and  it  was 
a  great  while  before  she  rose  again  to 
the  surface.  Of  course  Simeon  seized 
her  as  soon  as  she  rose.  He  was  sorry 
enough  then,  for  what  he  had  done. 
But  she  immediately  seized  him,  as 
drowning  persons  frequently  do,  when 
they  have  lost   the   command  of  them- 


116  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

selves,  and  she  held  his  hands  so  fast 
that  he  could  not  move  them.  The 
water  was  so  deep  that  he  could  not 
touch  the  bottom.  He  was  in  danger 
of  drowning  himself.  Meanwhile,  the 
poor  girl  was  sinking  again.  Simeon 
struggled  with  all  his  might.  After  a 
long  time  he  succeeded  in  dragging  her 
to  the  shore.  But  she  was  drowned. 
The  last  spark  of  life  had  left. 

I  shall  never  forget  what  a  gloom 
spread  over  the  whole  neighborhood, 
when  the  terrible  news  was  known.  No 
event  of  such  a  nature  had  ever  happen- 
ed there  before ;  and  for  months  after 
that,    tears   flowed    down    the    sunburnt 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 


117 


cheeks  of  those  warm-hearted  farmers, 
when  the  fate  of  poor  Margaret  was  men- 
tioned. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   YOUNG   TRUTH-TELLER. 

I  learned  many  a  lesson  in  truth- 
telling,  when  I  was  a  boy,  from  Amanda 
Redmond.  Amanda  was  a  sweet  girl. 
I  loved  her,  as  if  she  were  my  own  sister. 
She  Avas  a  little  my  senior  in  age.  But 
she  never  put  on  any  airs  on  that  ac- 
count, as  some  of  the  older  girls  did. 
She  did  not  assume  any  superior  wisdom. 
She  did  not  try  to  dazzle  me  with  the 


P-  AMANDA  AT  HER  KNITTING- WOBK.  119 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  121 

learning  she  had  picked  up,  I  scarcely 
know  how,  when  and  where.  But  I  al- 
ways felt,  when  in  her  presence,  that  I 
was  a  mere  dunce.  It  is  astonishing 
what  influence  she  had  over  me  ;  though 
I  presume  that  as  great  a  portion  of  it  was 
due  to  her  pure  principles  and  consistent 
life,  as  to  a  mind  quite  above  her  years. 

Amanda's  father  was  a  blacksmith- — 
the  only  one  in  Willow  Lane.  He  shod 
all  the  horses  and  oxen,  put  on  all  the 
cart  tires,  made  all  the  cranes,  hooks  and 
trammels,  and  in  short,  did  all  the  blow- 
ing and  striking  in  Willow  Lane ;  unless 
I  except  the  blowing  and  striking,  which 
certainly  had  not  much  to  do  with  black- 


122  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

smithing,    of    Mr.    Solomon   Stark,    the 
schoolmaster. 

Mr.  Redmond  had  several  children; 
but  among  them  all,  Amanda  was  my 
favorite.  How  many,  many  times  I 
have  gone  over  to  Mr.  Redmond's,  for 
no  other  purpose  in  the  world,  than  be- 
cause I  wanted  to  have  a  chat  with 
Amanda.  Though  I  always  found  her 
busy  about  something — knitting,  or  sew- 
ing, or  helping  her  mother  about  the 
house — I  do  believe  she  was  always  glad 
to  see  me.  The  kind,  true-hearted  girl ! 
I  had  reason  to  love  her.  I  knew  I 
could  always  depend  on  what  she  said. 
She  never  deceived  me.     Her  regard  for 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  123 

the  truth  was  a  proverb  in  Willow  Lane. 
I  have  many  a  time  heard  a  person  say, 
"  I  don't  believe  that  that  girl  (mention- 
ing the  name)  would  tell  a  lie  any  more 
than  Amanda  Redmond  would."  In- 
deed, Parson  Daley  was  once  heard  to 
speak  of  her  as  the  "  truth- teller." 

What  an  excellent  character  this  is  for 
a  girl  to  have — the  "  truth-teller  !"  I 
tell  you  what  it  is,  that  title  is  more  to 
be  coveted  than  that  of  the  queen  of 
England  or  the  emperor  of  Russia. 

"But  what  was  there  so  remarkable 
about  that  girl  V9  some  one  inquires. 
"Is  it  such  a  rare  thing  for  children  to 
tell  the  truth  ?     Why,  I   never  did  any- 


124  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

thing  else  but  tell  the  truth  in  all  my 
life." 

I  should  hope,  to  be  sure,  that  among 
my  readers,  the  number  of  those  who 
ever  allow  themselves  to  tell  a  lie,  is  very 
small,  indeed.  But  I  am  afraid  that  it  is 
too  common  with  boys  and  girls  to  act 
falsehood,  when  they  would  not  speak  it 
with  their  lips  for  all  the  world.  I  have 
known  some  young  people  dodge  about, 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  so  near  a  lie,  all 
the  time,  that  I  thought  they  might  al- 
most as  well  have  told  a  round,  plump 
one,  and  have  done  with  it. 

I  have  heard  of  a  man  who  was  once 
found  in  a  cellar,  holding  a  lighted  lamp 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  125 

in  an  open  cask  of  powder.  When 
asked  what  he  was  at,  he  replied,  coolly, 
that  he  was  trying  to  see  how  near  he 
could  get  the  blaze  to  the  powder  with- 
out touching  it.  I  have  sometimes 
thought,  when  I  have  seen  people 
dodging  about  between  a  lie  and  the 
truth,  that  they  were  trying  an  experi- 
ment quite  as  foolish  and  almost  as  dan- 
gerous as  the  one  which  this  dunce  tried 
over  the  powder  barrel. 

Now  the  way  in  which  my  friend 
Amanda  got  her  character  for  truth- 
telling,  was  by  showing  a  regard  for 
truth  at  all  times — by  telling  the  truth  in 
her  actions,  as  well  as  in  her  words. 


126  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

I  remember  a  debate  I  had  with  her 
one  day  about  this  matter  of  truth-tell- 
ing. She  took  strong  ground  against  all 
those  deviations  from  the  bounds  of  truth, 
so  commonly  regarded  as  exceedingly 
slight  and  frivolous,  which  sometimes  go 
by  the  name  of  white  lies.  I  stood  up 
for  the  white  lies.  I  did  not  often  ven- 
ture to  differ  with  Amanda,  much  less  to 
dispute  with  her.  She  was  my  oracle  ; 
and  in  most  cases  I  yielded  to  her  opin- 
ion at  once.  I  pinned  my  faith  on  her 
sleeves,  almost  as  tightly  as  Uncle 
Miah  did  his  on  the  sleeves  of  Par- 
son Daley.  I  must  tell  you  an  anec- 
dote— if  you  will  let  me  go  out  of  my 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  127 

way  a  little — which  will  show  you  how 
firmly  the  deacon's  faith  was  pinned  to 
the  sleeves  of  our  good  minister.  One 
Sunday  a  strange  clergyman  preached  in 
the  old  brick  meeting  house.  Mr.  Daley 
was  away  somewhere.  Perhaps  he  had 
exchanged  with- the  strange  minister.  I 
do  not  remember  how  that  was.  Nor  do 
I  remember — I  might  as  well  confess  it — 
what  kind  of  preaching  we  had  that  day. 
But  this  I  remember  distinctly  enough, 
that  one  of  the  neighbors  met  Uncle 
Miah  the  next  day,  and  asked  him  how 
he  liked  the  minister  they  had  heard  the 
day  before.  "  Can't  tell  for  certain," 
said  Uncle  Miah  ;   "  haven't  seen  Parson 


128  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Daley  yet."  But  I  must  hurry  back  to 
Amanda  and  those  white  lies. 

As  I  was  saying,  I  pinned  my  faith 
pretty  tightly  to  Amanda's  sleeves,  and 
did  not  ordinarily  unpin  it.  But  this 
time,  when  we  had  the  talk  about  the 
white  lies,  I  set  up  for 'myself.  I  saw 
that  if  she  was  right,  there  was  a  good 
deal  in  my  conduct  that  needed  tinker- 
ing ;  and  I  did  not  wish  to  admit  that 
for  a  moment.  So  I  pitched  head  fore- 
most into  a  perfect  ocean  of  argument. 

"  Frank,"  said  she,  at  the  time  to 
which  I  allude,  "  are  you  fond  of  water- 
melons ?" 

I  frankly  confessed  that  I  was  fond  of 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  129 

them — "  very  fond,  indeed."  There 
was  no  white  lie  about  that  statement. 

"  Because,"  she  added,  as  if  I  had  not 
spoken,  "  we  have  some  very  fine  ones, 
and  father  says  you  can  have  one  every 
day,  if  you  will  come  over  to  our  house 
and  get  it." 

That  made  me  blush.  Would  you 
like  to  know  why  ?  I'll  tell  you.  Mr. 
Redmond  had  a  patch  of  watermelons 
that  year,  just  back  of  his  blacksmith's 
shop,  and  I  had  been  persuaded  to  join  a 
company  of  bad  boys,  one  evening,  and 
to  lend  a  hand  in  stealing — hooking,  re- 
garded as  rather  a  milder  word,  was  the 
term  used  by  the  boys — some   of  these 


130  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

melons.  You  must  not  suppose  that 
stealing  fruit  was  a  common  thing  with 
me.  It  was  quite  otherwise,  I  assure 
you.  I  was  out  of  my  element  that 
night.  I  had  yielded  to  temptation,  in 
an  evil  moment,  and  I  had  done  what  I 
have  been  heartily  ashamed  of  as  often 
as  I  have  thought  of  it  since. 

"And  don't  you  think,"  Amanda  con- 
tinued, "  that  you  would  feel  a  great  deal 
better,  if  you  should  eat  the  melons  here, 
with  a  clean  plate  and  knife,  than  you 
would  to  eat  them  behind  tbe  black- 
smith's shop,  with  a  dirty  jack-knife, 
without  any  plate  at  all  ?" 

I  did  think  so,  and  so  I  told  her. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  131 

"  Well,  then,"  she  went  on — and  oh, 
how  those  words  did  prick  me  ;  I  could 
almost  feel  the  old,  dirty  jack-knife  cut- 
ting into  my  flesh — "  well,  then,  I  hope 
you  will  not  eat  any  more  melons  behind 
the  blacksmith's  shop." 

She  said  all  this  kindly,  and  with  a 
smile  as  sweet  as  ever.  But  if  she  had 
made  a  pin-cushion  out  of  my  arm,  I 
don't  believe  she  would  have  made  me 
smart  any  more  severely.  But  "  I  must 
brave  it  out,"  I  thought.  "  It  will  not 
do  to  own  up  to  her.  I  should  be  dis- 
graced forever.  She  would  never  speak 
to  me  again.  She  did  not  see  me  hook 
the    melons.     I    don't   believe  anybody 


132  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

saw  me.  She  only  guesses  I  did  it. 
How  does  she  know  ]  I  will  not  own. 
it." 

"  I  haven't  eaten  any  melons  behind 
the  blacksmith's  shop,"  I  said. 

"  But  Captain  Parry  says  he  saw  you 
there  with  two  or  three  other  bad  boys, 
and  that  you  was  eating  watermelons 
with  them." 

"Well,  if  Captain  Parry  says  so,  he 
lies,  that's  all." 

Amanda  looked  at  me,  and  shook  her 
head,  but  made  no  reply. 

I  saw  in  a  moment  that  I  had  made  a 
great  mistake — that  I  had  dulled,  as  the 
farmers   say  when   they  hit  a   stone  in 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  133 

mowing — for  I  knew  and  everybody 
knew  that  there  was  not  a  truer  or  purer 
man  in  Willow  Lane  than  Captain  Parry. 
He  was  among  the  few  in  those  parts 
against  whom  the  tongue  of  slander  sel- 
dom dared  to  wag. 

There  was  a  pause  for  a  little  while. 
Amanda  knew  not  what  to  say  next — 
and  I  am  sure  I  did  not.  She  ventured, 
at  last,  timidly  and  sadly,  to  hint  that  she 
was  afraid  I  did  not  speak  the  truth ; 
that  Captain  Parry  must  have  been  very 
sure  he  saw  me,  or  he  would  not  have 
said  so ;  and  that  she  hoped  I  would  not 
tell  a  lie,  because  that  was  as  bad  as 
taking  the  watermelons,  if  not  worse. 


134  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

This  softened  me  some,  though  not 
enough.  I  confessed  that  I  had  had  a 
hand  in  stealing  the  melons,  and  that  I 
had  done  my  share  in  eating  them. 
There  was  no  merit  in  the  confession, 
though ;  for  you  see  I  did  not  make  it 
until  she  had  driven  me  into  a  cor- 
ner where  I  could  not  get  away.  My 
confession  was  well  enough  ;  but  it  came 
too  late.  My  giving  up  when  I  was  cor- 
nered, was  like  a  man  talking  about  a 
surrender,  when  he  is  already  caught. 

I  told  her  all  about  that  paltry  water- 
melon affair,  and  assured  her  that  I  was 
sorry  for  the  hand  I  had  had  in  it.  I 
ivas  sorry,  you   may  depend  upon  that. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  135 

I  *told  her,  too,  that  I  should  never  do  so 
again,  and  that  I  hoped  she  and  her 
father  would  forgive  me. 

"  But  the  falsehood  ?"  said  Amanda, 
inquiringly. 

*  Oh,  I  did  not  tell  any  falsehood,"  I 
replied. 

"  Why,  didn't  you  say  that  you  had 
not  eaten  any  of  the  watermelons  V9 

"Yes." 

"  But  now  you  own  that  you  did  eat 
some  of  them." 

"  I  said,  at  first,  that  I  didn't  eat  any 
watermelons.  That  was  true.  I  didn't 
eat  but  one." 

"  Is  it  possible  that  Frank  can  quibble 


136  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

in  this  way  ?"  Amanda  said,  while  a  tear 
stood  in  her  eye.  "  Is  it  possible  ?  I 
should  not  have  believed  that  of  you." 

«  Why,  what  harm  is  there  in  that  %" 
I  asked. 

"  You  might  as  well  ask  what  harm 
there  is  in  telling  a  lie." 

"  But  I  did  not  tell  a  lie." 

"  Perhaps  not.  But  didn't  you  think 
that  was  rather  a  poor  way  of  telling  the 
truth  ?" 

"  No,  I'm  sure  I  don't." 

66  Didn't  you  try  to  make  me  think 
that  you  had  not  taken  any  part  in 
stealing  and  eating  the  melons  V9 

"  Yes,  but  I  didn't  tell  a  lie  about  it." 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  137 

"  Suppose  sister  Julia  should  ask  me 
this  evening  if  Frank  had  been  over  here 
to-day,  and  I  should  shake  my  head,  and 
Julia  should  believe  that  you  had  not 
been  here;  wouldn't  that  be  telling  a 
lie  ?" 

"  I  don't  know  but  it  would." 
"  Are  you  not  sure  that  it  would  ?" 
"  Yes,  I  am  ;  but  I  didn't  do  anything 
like  that." 

"  You  meant  to  deceive  me." 
"  But  I  didn't  shake  my  head,  when 
you  asked  me  about  the  watermelons." 

"  True,  but  you  tried  to  cheat  me  by 
a  quibble,  which  I  think  was  quite  as 
near  a  falsehood  as  you  would  have  got 


138  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

if  you  had  shaken  your  head.  It  was  a 
great  deal  too  near,  at  any  rate." 

"  But  I  didn't  make  you  think  I  had 
not  taken  the  melons." 

"  No  thanks  to  you  for  that.  You 
wanted  to  make  me  think  so,  and  you 
tried  hard  enough  to  bring  it  about." 

I  began  to  feel  that  I  had  not  much 
ground  left  to  stand  upon.  She  saw  it — 
she  could  read  me,  through  and  through, 
at  one  glance — and  she  added, 

"  No,  dear  Frank,  you  are  wrong,  I'm 
sure,  now,  you  are  wrong.  You  have 
not  thought  much  of  the  matter  before. 
You  have  not  looked  upon  it  in  this 
light ;  and  I  don't  think  that  you  meant 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  139 

to  plead  for  falsehood  in  any  shape. 
But  I  hope  you  will  think  it  all  over 
when  you  go  home.  Ask  yourself — ask 
your  conscience,  whether  such  liberties 
as  you  have  taken  with  the  truth  are 
right,  will  you,  Frank  ?" 

I  promised  her  that  I  would.  I  kept 
my  promise,  loo  ;  and  the  more  I  thought 
of  what  she  had  said,  the  more  clearly  I 
saw  that  I  had  been  trying,  though  with- 
out intending  it,  to  justify  falsehood.  I 
saw,  that  if  such  white  lies  were  wel- 
comed into  good  company,  a  door  was 
opened  to  let  in  all  manner  of  lies,  al- 
most, that  ever  Satan  invented. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE   NEW   SKATES; 
ok,  "forgive  us  our  trespasses." 

Close  by  my  father's  house  resided 
Mr.  Goodman.  My  father  and  he  were 
on  the  best  of  terms.  They  met  almost 
every  day,  to  chat^Wittle,  and,  it  may  be, 
to  smoke  a*  friendly  pipe  together — -for 
they  both  loved  smoking  (though  I  do 
not  place  that  to  their  credit)  as  well  as 
they  loved    to  eat,  and  I  think  a  little 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  141 

better — and  to  discuss  the  news  far  and 

near. 

Mr.  Goodman  had  a  son  a  very  little 

younger  than  myself,  whose   name  was 

Daniel.     Daniel    and   I    were    quite  as 

good  friends  as  our  fathers  were.     If  we 

did  not  see  each  other  every  day,  a  dark 

cloud  came   over   our  brow;  and  when 

we  were   obliged    to    be    separated    for 

several  days,  owing  to  one  of  us  having 

left  home  on  a  visit,  the  cloud  aforesaid 

grew    darker-  and    thicker,  and  just   as 

likely  as  not  the  rain  fell  a  little.     We 

were  uneasy  as  a  fish  out  of  water,  if  we 

were  not  romping  together  half  the  time 

when  we  were  out  of  school. 
9 


142  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

It  happened,  however — I  am  sorry 
to  be  obliged  to  own  it ;  I  feel  quite 
ashamed  now,  at  this  distant  day,  when 
I  think  of  it — it  happened  one  afternoon, 
that  we  quarreled.  Yes,  we  quarreled. 
We  got  so  angry  with  each  other,  that 
our  little  hearts  were  transformed  into 
miniature  steam-boilers,  and  our  throats 
into  steam-pipes,  and  so  the  words 
whizzed  out  of  our  mouths  red-hot.  I 
shall  not  tell  you  what  we  said  to  each 
other.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  remember. 
I  have  tried  to  forget  it,  I  do  assure  you, 
and  perhaps  I  have  succeeded.  But 
even  if  I  could  remember,  I  would  not 
tell    you.     Suffice    it    to    say,    that   the 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  143 

words  were  about  as  far  from  being  kind 
and  good-natured  as  they  could  be. 

The  way  in  which  the  quarrel  com- 
menced was  something  like  this.  My 
father  had  bought  me  a  pair  of  skates, 
and  Daniel  had  none.  It  was  in  the 
winter,  and  the  mill  pond  was  all  frozen 
over  solid,  and  the  skating  was  fine* 
Ah,  what  capital  sport  I  have  had  skat-^ 
ing  on  Mason's  pond.  It  brings  back 
the  fresh,  warm  heart  of  my  boyhood 
now,  only  to  think  of  it. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  unfortunate 
affair  to  which  I  allude,  Daniel  and  I, 
having  obtained  the  consent  of  our  pa- 
rents, went  over  to  the  pond,  to  try  the 


144  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

new  skates.  There  never  was  a  prettier 
pair  of  skates — there  never  could  have 
been  anything  before  that  went  over  the 
ice  so  gracefully  and  so  swiftly.  So  we 
thought.  It  was  voted,  unanimously — 
that  last  word  is  a  little  too  long,  and 
you  may  split  it  to  pieces,  if  you  like  to 
put  another  in  its  place — by  the  boys  on 
the  pond  at  the  time,  of  whom,  it  must 
be  confessed,  the  aforesaid  Daniel  and 
myself  comprised  something  more  than 
half,  that  Frank's  skates  were  finer  even 
than  Charley  Hoyt's;  and  the  school- 
master had  been  heard  to  say  that 
Charley's  were  the  best  that  had  ever 
come  into  Willow  Lane.     You  can  easily 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  145 

see,  reader,  what  a  compliment  was  paid 
to  my  new  skates.  The  schoolmaster, 
in  the  opinion  of  us  boys,  was  a  perfect 
Solomon,  and  in  our  way  of  thinking, 
Willow  Lane  embraced  a  much  greater 
share  of  the  habitable  globe  than  our 
school  atlas,  in  after  days,  when  we 
studied  Morse's  geography,  gave  it  credit 
for  embracing. 

Well,  I  mounted  the  skates.  Skate 
navigation,  at  first,  is  riCJt  v^v  ea^r% 
Every  boy,  in  his  first  efforts  to  s^ate, 
can  easily  understand  how  perilous  were 
some  of  my  earliest  attempts  to  imitate 
the  feats  of  the  larger  boys.  I  fell  some 
half  a  dozen  times,  and  once  or  twice  flat 


146  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

upon  my  back.  Did  you  ever  strike  the 
back  part  of  your  head  on  the  ice,  my 
boy  1  What  a  host  of  stars  one  sees  at 
such  a  time.  I  saw  I  don't  know  how 
many  brilliant  ones,  and  indeed,  whole 
constellations  of  them,  over  and  over 
again,  before  I  learned  to  skate  well. 

When,  on  this  occasion,  I  had  amused 
myself  for  half  an  hour,  or  more,  I 
thought  I  had  studied  astronomy  in  this 
way  about  enough  for  one  day,  and  un- 
tied my  skates,  and  allowed  Daniel  to 
put  them  on  his  feet.  They  fitted  him 
as  well  as  they  did  me.  Our  feet  were 
of  very  nearly  the  same  size.  Daniel's 
fate  was  not  unlike  mine.     He  saw  about 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  147 

the  same  number  of  planets  and  stars  of 
the  first  magnitude — so  I  should  think — 
and  made  something  like  the  same  pro- 
gress in  the  mysteries  of  the  skating  art. 

While  my  companion  was  thus  en- 
gaged, we  saw  a  colored  boy,  who  lived 
at  my  father's,  coming  toward  the  pond, 
running  at  the  very  top  of  his  speed — 
"  full  tilt,"  as  we  boys  had  it — and  what 
was  more  to  the  point,  he  had  a  pair  of 
skates  in  his  hand.  Yes,  a  pair  of  skates ! 
There  was  absolutely  no  mistake  about 
it.     How  strange  ! 

As  soon  as  the  little  fellow  could  get 
breath  enough  to  speak,  he  told  us  that 
the   skates    were    presented    to    Master 


148  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Daniel  ;  that  my  father  recollecting, 
after  the  boys  had  left  for  the  pond,  that 
Daniel  had  no  skates,  went  over  to  the 
store  and  bought  a  pair  for  him,  so  that 
he  could  enjoy  the  sport  as  well  as  I. 
"  As  soon  as  he  had  bought  them," 
Peter  went  on,  "he  came  into  the 
kitchen,  where  I  was  reading  Robinson 
Crusoe,  and  said,  'Run,  Peter,  run  to 
the  pond,  as  fast  as  you  can  go,  and  take 
these  skates  to  Daniel.'  So  I  ran  all  the 
way,  sure  enough,  and  I  never  was  so 
tired  in  my  life."  And  the  fellow  panted 
for  breath,  as  you  have  sometimes  seen 
a  great  fat  man  do,  when  he  had  walked 
up  three  or  four  flights  of  stairs. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  149 

Could  it  be  possible  ?  Daniel  and  I 
both  were  equally  surprised.  Neither 
of  us  had  thought  of  the  possibility  of 
such  a  state  of  things.  Neither  was  pre- 
pared for  it.  Daniel  was  elated.  As  for 
me,  it  would  be  difficult  to  tell  how  I 
felt,  though  I  am  quite  sure  I  did  not 
feel  right.  When  we  got  over  our  as- 
tonishment a  little,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
speak,  we  began  to  "  compare  notes" 
together. 

It  soon  became  evident  how  matters 
stood.  Daniel's  skates,  (so  he  really 
thought  them,  though  it  is  very  doubtful, 
wTere  he  to  see  the  two  pairs  together 
now,  if  he   could   see  any  difference  in 


150  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

them  worth  mentioning,)  were  hand- 
somer than  mine.  Daniel  hinted  at  this 
fact.  I  hinted  as  plainly,  and  perhaps  a 
little  more  plainly,  that  he  was  mistaken, 
if  he  thought  so. 

Daniel  appealed  to  Peter.  Peter 
thought  if  there  was  any  difference,  it 
was  certainly  in  favor  of  Daniel's  skates. 
" There,  there,"  said  Daniel,  "Peter 
says  my  skates  are  handsomer  than 
yours;"  and  he  laughed,  and  his  black 
eyes,  I  thought,  had  a  roguish  twinkle 
about  them,  which  meant  more  than  he 
dared  to  speak  with  his  lips.  I  was 
angry.  The  words  I  said  had  but  three 
letters  each,  and  there  were  only  three 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  151 

of  the  words,  but  they  were  bitter 
enough.  I  will  not  tell  you  what  they 
were.  I  don't  want  to  disgrace  my  pen 
with  them.  You  can  guess  what  they 
were,  though. 

Then  came  a  storm,  you  may  be  sure 
of  it.  It  lasted  some  time.  There  was 
a  good  deal  of  thunder,  as  well  as  some 
pretty  bright  flashes  of  lightning,  in  the 
course  of  the  storm.  How  long  the  quar- 
rel would  have  lasted,  if  we  had  remained 
together,  I  don't  know.  But  it  got  to 
be  time  to  leave  for  home.  We  parted — 
parted  brimful  of  anger  and  hate.  Oh, 
how  foolish  and  wicked  !  Peter  went 
home  with  me ;  Daniel  went  alone. 


152  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

That  night  and  all  the  next  day,  I  was 
wretched  enough.  Indeed,  I  never  got 
angry  with  anybody  in  my  life  without 
being  wretched.  It  is  a  bad  investment, 
this  getting  into  a  passion,  and  holding 
heat  a  long  time,  as  a  bar  of  iron  does. 
I  never  came  across  anybody  in  my 
whole  life,  that  said  there  was  any  fun  in 
getting  mad.  Anger  is  like  a  sirocco 
wind.  There  is  no  good  in  it.  It  hurts 
everything  it  blows  upon.  It  withers  up 
all  the  sweet  flowers  of  the  heart. 

My  father  heard  of  the  affair.  He  did 
not  say  anything  to  me  about  it  until  the 
next  day.  That  night,  when  I  kneeled 
down  with  my  brother,  to  say  "  Now  I 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  153 

lay  me  down  to  sleep,"  and  the  "  Lord's 
Prayer,"  I  felt  worse  than  ever.  I  came 
to  the  words,  "  Forgive  us  our  trespasses, 
as  we  forgive  those  who  trespass  against 
us." 

" Stop,"  said  my  father.  "  You  ask 
the  Lord  to  forgive  you,  just  as  you  for- 
give your  playmates.  Do  you  forgive 
them  ?  If  you  cannot  forgive  them,  all 
of  them,  for  the  wrongs  they  have  done 
you,  how  can  you  expect  your  heavenly- 
Father  will  forgive  you  ?" 

This  touched  my  heart.  I  had  often 
repeated  those  words  before ;  but  I  had 
never  fully  understood  their  meaning. 
Oh,  what  a  mine  of  pure  gold  the  whole 


154  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

Bible  is,  my  dear  children.  How  full  it 
is  of  just  such  things  as  we  all  need,  to 
help  us  along  in  our  journey  to  the  other 
world.  It  is  a  blessed  volume.  What 
should  we  do  without  it  ?  and  how 
thankful  we  ought  to  be  that  God  has 
given  it  to  us. 

When  my  father  asked  me  the  ques- 
tion, I  burst  into  tears.  "  O,  father  !"  I 
said,  "  I  am  very  unhappy.  What  shall 
I  do  ?"  and  a  deluge  of  tears  ran  down 
my  cheeks. 

"  Do  ?"  said  my  father,  "  forgive  Dan- 
iel. Go  and  tell  him  you  forgive  him, 
and  that  you  are  sorry  you  have  said 
anything  to  injure  his  feelings." 


A    QUARREL    MADE    UP. 


156 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  157 

"  I  will — I  will  go  to-morrow,"  I  said. 

"  Better  to-night,"  replied  my  father. 

I  hesitated  a  little ;  but  I  got  my  hat 
and  mittens,  and  went  over  with  my 
father  to  Mr.  Goodman's.  Daniel,  who 
felt  as  unhappy  as  I  did,  came  into  the 
room  where  I  was.  I  ran  and  embraced 
him.  "  O  Daniel !  forgive  me  !"  I  said. 
"  I  will  never  do  so  any  more." 

At  first  he  was  not  quite  ready  to 
make  up;  but  when  I  told  him  again 
that  I  was  sorry  for  what  I  had  said,  and 
asked  his  forgiveness,  and  assured  him 
that  if  he  forgave  me,  I  would  never  do 
so  any  more,  he  was  melted.  There  was 
a  whole  deluge  of  tears  shed  on  both 


158  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

sides,  and  the  difficulty  was  all  over  for- 
ever. 

I  went  home.  I  knelt  down  again  to 
say  the  "  Lord's  Prayer,"  and  this  time  I 
felt  that  God  smiled  upon  me  when  I 
asked  him  to  "forgive  my  trespasses." 


CHAPTER  XL 

LAUGHING   BILL. 

There  was  a  boy  in  our  neighborhood 
who  generally  went  by  the  name  of 
"Laughing  Bill."  His  real  name  was 
William  Scott ;  but  he  was  so  seldom 
addressed  by  that  name,  that  I  doubt  if 
half  a  dozen  among  all  the  merry  school- 
boys in  Willow  Lane,  were  aware  that 
such   a   person   as   William    Scott   ever 

lived. 

10 


160  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

As  you  may  surmise,  this  urchin  was  a 
laughing  character.  In  fact,  he  laughed 
as  if  it  was  a  business  he  had  taken  up 
for  life,  and  one  by  which  he  intended 
to  get  his  living.  If  things  went  on  well 
with  him,  he  laughed.  He  laughed,  too, 
quite  as  heartily,  if  they  went  ill.  I 
have  known  him  absolutely  convulsed 
with  laughter,  while  the  village  school- 
master was  giving  him  a  sound  drubbing 
with  one  of  the  seasoned  hickory  sprouts, 
which  had  been  laid  up  for  three  months 
in  his  desk.  So  you  see  William  Scott 
came  pretty  honestly  by  the  title  which 
the  boys  gave  him. 

He   was   a   kind,    good-natured    boy. 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  161 

Few  of  our  number  ever  had  any  quar- 
rels with  him  ;  and  if  any  one  did  so  for- 
get himself  as  to  commence  a  battle  with 
him,  just  as  likely  as  not  Bill  would  set 
his  laughing  engine  in  motion,  and  do 
his  part  of  the  fighting  with  that. 

He  was,  on  the  whole,  a  pretty  good 
scholar,  though  it  happened  too  fre- 
quently, I  used  to  think,  that  he  would 
come  to  school  with  a  very  bad  lesson. 
For  that,  however,  he  generally  managed 
to  make  up  pretty  soon,  probably  as  early 
as  the  next  day,  when  he  would  have  a 
better  lesson,  perhaps,  than  any  other 
boy  in  school. 

As  William   lived   in   the    immediate 


162  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

neighborhood  of  my  father's  house,  we 
used  to  be  often  together.  He  had  no 
bad  habits ;  and  so  my  mother,  who  was 
very  particular  in  respect  to  the  com- 
pany I  kept,  did  not  hesitate  to  allow  us 
to  be  together. 

I  said  that  William  had  no  bad  habits. 
I  ought  to  explain  that  a  little.  I  mean 
that  he  did  not  use  profane  and  impure 
language,  and  that  he  was  not  what  is 
called  a  bad  boy.  There  was  one  bad 
habit  about  him,  although  that  was  of 
such  a  nature  that  it  is  hardly  proper  to 
speak  of  it  as  a  wicked  habit.  I  will  tell 
you  what  it  was.  He  could  hardly  ever 
deny  a  person,  when  he  was  asked  to  do 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  163 

anything  or  to  go  anywhere.  He  was  a 
great  deal  too  obliging  in  this  respect. 

"  But  that  was  a  good  trait  in  Bill's 
character.  I  should  think  it  was  a  good 
trait,  Uncle  Frank." 

No,  that  is  a  great  mistake. 

"  Why,  is  it  not  right  to  oblige  every- 
body, as  much  as  possible  ?" 

Certainly,  when  you  can  oblige  every 
one  without  doing  wrong.  Boys  and 
girls,  and  men  and  women,  are  often 
asked  to  do  something  which  would  be  a 
great  injury  to  them ;  and  perhaps,  if 
they  yielded,  they  would  disobey  God. 
In  that  case,  it  would  be  wrong  to  yield, 
you  see.     William  Scott,  because  he  was 


164  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

so  anxious  to  please  everybody,  or  for 
some  other  reason,  used  too  often,  as  he 
grew  older,  to  do  as  he  was  urged  to  do, 
when  by  so  doing,  he  was  the  cause  of  a 
good  deal  of  mischief. 

There  were  in  our  village,  as  there 
are,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  in  too  many  other 
places  in  different  parts  of  the  country, 
some  young  men  that  indulged  in  drink- 
ing intoxicating  liquors.  Once  in  a 
while  they  got  together,  and  drank  a, 
good  deal,  at  which  times  they  did  a 
great  many  foolish  things,  as  if  they  were 
trying  to  see  which  could  act  most  like  a 
brute.  I  believe  they  sometimes  suc- 
ceeded in  outdoing  all  the  brutes  that 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  165 

we've  ever  heard  of,  since  the  beginning 
of  the  world. 

Laughing  Bill  had  scarcely  tasted  a 
drop  of  liquor  when  he  was  fourteen 
years  of  age.  His  father  was  pretty 
temperate  in  his  habits,  and  though  he 
furnished  liquor  to  his  hired  men  in  hay- 
ing time — for  there  was  only  one  man  in 
Willow  Lane  who  believed  it  possible  to 
get  through  haying  without  New  Eng- 
land rum,  or  something  of  that  class  and 
order — he  did  not  drink  much  himself, 
and  never  allowed  his  boys  to  drink  at 
all. 

But  about  this  time,  William  was  in 
company  with  two  or  three  of  the  drink- 


166  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

ing  young  men  I  have  alluded  to,  and 
they  persuaded  him  to  go  to  the  tavern 
with  them  the  next  night.  He  could  not 
say  no.  How  strange !  Why,  he  must 
have  known  that  it  would  be  dangerous 
to  be  in  such  a  place,  with  that  kind  of 
company,  even  for  one  evening.  But 
perhaps  he  did  not  think  much  about  it. 
Young  people  frequently  do  things  which 
they  are  sorry  for  as  long  as  they  live,  just 
because  they  did  not  have  their  thoughts 
about  them  at  the  time.  They  ought  to 
think,  though.  What  are  our  thoughts 
good  for,  if  we  cannot  make  use  of  them 
when  we  are  tempted  to  sin  ? 

William    yielded,    and    went    to    the 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  167 

tavern.  He  did  not  mean  to  drink  any- 
thing stronger  than  root  beer  and  lemon- 
ade, when  he  consented  to  go.  He  did 
not  mean  to  drink  anything  stronger  after 
he  got  to  the  tavern.  But  he  was  urged 
to  do  so — urged  hard.  He  could  not 
refuse ;  it  would  be  unkind  to  do  so,  he 
thought.  His  companions  would  be 
offended. 

So  he  drank.  Poor  fellow  !  how  little 
did  he  know,  when  he  touched  that  glass 
to  his  lips — how  little  did  he  know  what 
that  act  was  to  cost  him.  Though  he 
was  disgusted  with  what  he  saw  and 
heard  at  the  tavern,  and  left  it  with  the 
determination  never  to  visit  it  with  such 


168  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

company  again,  he  did  go  there  the 
second  time,  with  the  same  company,  in 
less  than  three  weeks.  You  see  he  had 
hard  work  to  refuse,  because  he  had 
formed  the  habit  of  yielding.  But  he 
ought  to  have  refused.  If  he  found  it  a 
hard  task,  he  should  have  worked  harder 
at  it — he  should  have  set  himself  more 
resolutely  about  it. 

I  do  not  wish  to  follow  this  young  man 
through  all  the  windings  of  his  path  for 
five  or  six  years.  Knowing  him  so  well 
as  I  did,  it  would  be  too  painful  to  pur- 
sue his  history  so  minutely,  nor  is  it  ne- 
cessary to  do  so.  The  depraved  taste 
which  he  formed  for  rum  and  brandy,  and 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  169 

other  liquors  of  the  kind,  soon  led  him 
along  the  highway  of  intemperance  with 
fearful  rapidity.  Do  you  wonder  at  it, 
my  young  friend  ?  You  need  not  won- 
der at  it.  Intoxicating  liquors  set  the 
whole  body  and  mind  on  fire.  They 
drive  a  person  crazy.  He  loses  com- 
mand of  himself,  after  a  while.  He  goes 
on  drinking,  though  he  knows  well  that 
he  is  going  certainly  and  swiftly  to  de- 
struction. 

William  was  soon  a  confirmed  drunk- 
ard ;  and  oh,  what  distress  he  brought  on 
the  once  happy  family  of  which  he  was 
a  member !  Before  he  was  twenty-one 
years  of  age,  he  was  often   found,  in  the 


170  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

dead  of  night,  in  a  state  of  loathsome 
drunkenness. 

One  day,  in  company  with  one  of  the 
young  men  who  led  him  astray,  he  went 
into  the  woods  on  a  hunting  excursion. 
A  bottle  of  brandy  was  a  part  of  the  out- 
fit for  this  excursion.  They  both  drank 
freely — William  more  freely  than  his 
companion.  Toward  night,  just  before 
they  were  thinking  of  returning  home, 
William  was  separated  a  few  rods  from 
his  companion,  and  for  some  reason  or 
other,  had  climbed  a  little  distance  up  a 
tree  which  was  partly  blown  down  by 
the  wind,  and  which  overhung  the  brow 
of  the  hill.     Poor  man  !  he  had  not  suffi- 


PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS.  171 

cient  command  of  himself  to  retain  his 
balance.  He  fell  head  foremost  from 
the  tree,  before  his  companion  could 
reach  him,  and  was  almost  instantly 
killed. 

So  ended  the  short  career  of  Laughing 
Bill. 

Boys,  I  could  preach  you  a  long  ser- 
mon, with  William  Scott  for  a  text.  I 
could  talk  with  a  great  deal  of  feeling  on 
that  subject,  too  ;  for  the  tears  will  come 
into  my  eyes,  in  spite  of  myself,  when  I 
think  of  what  that  young  man  was,  and 
when  I  trace  his  history  in  my  mind,  till 
I  come  to  its  terrible  end.  How  I  loved 
that   boy;    and    what  sorrow   filled   my 


172  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

young  heart,  when  I  saw  his  fair  face 
for  the  last  time.  Aye,  I  could  preach 
long  and  feelingly  on  such  a  text.  But 
I  will  not  do  so.  I  will  let  the  facts 
preach  for  themselves.  I  will  point  you 
to  them  for  a  sermon,  as  Mark  Antony 
pointed  to  the  bleeding  body  of  Csesar. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

UNCLE   FRANK'S   LEAVE-TAKING. 

I  suppose  it  is  high  time  that  I  took 
my  leave  of  you,  little  friends.  I  am 
very  fond  of  young  people  ;  and  when  I 
can  get  a  chance  to  tell  them  stories  that 
will  entertain  them,  and  profit  them  at 
the  same  time,  I  hardly  know  where  to 
bite  off  the  thread.  When  I  get  my 
story-telling  machinery  in  good  running 
order,  it  is  really  hard  work  to  stop  the 


174  PEEP    AT    OUR    NEIGHBORS. 

wheels.  I  am  sorry  to  be  obliged  to 
take  my  leave  of  you  now.  But  I  see 
clearly  enough  that  I  must  do  it ;  and  so 
I  will  say  my  adieu,  without  any  more 
ceremony. 

Mr.  Scribner,  my  publisher,  thinks  it 
would  be  a  good  notion  to  write  another 
book  for  my -young  friends.  Perhaps  so. 
I  am  more  than  half  inclined  to  write 
one,  while  I  have  my  hand  in,  and  to 
give  in  it  an  account  of  the  Miller  of 
our  Village,  and  some  of  his  Tolls. 


BEAUTIFUL    SERIES  OF  JUVENILES. 


CHAELESSCEIBNER, 

145   NASSAU   STREET,    NEW   YORK, 

PUBLISHES 

UNCLE   FRANK'S 

HOME    STORIES. 

IN  6    VOLS.    SQUARE    12MO.    UNIFORM    STYLE, 
WITH     ELEGANT     TINTED     ENGRAVINGS     IN     EACH     VOLUME. 

By  FRANCIS  C.  WOODWORTH, 

EDITOR  OF  "  WOOD  WORTH'S  YOUTH'S  CABINET,"  AUTHOR  OF  "STORIES 
ABOUT  ANIMALS,"   ETC. 


This  Series,  by  one  of  the  most  popular  writers  in  America, 
in  the  department  of  Juvenile  Literature,  is  confidently  re- 
commended by  the  publisher,  as  unequalled  in  respect  to  its 
mechanical  beauty  and  literary  interest,  by  any  similar  pub- 
lication. 

The  Titles  of  the  several  books  of  this  series,  with  the 
Contents  and  Illustrations  in  each  book,  are  given  on  subse- 
quent pages. 


A  BUDGET  OF  WILLOW  LANE  STORIES. 


BY  UNCLE  FRANK. 


CONTENTS 


Opening  op  the  Budget. 

Otte  First  Schoolmaster. 

The  Monkey  and  his  Spelling  Class. 

The  Bonfire. 

The  Cold  Water  Boy. 

Witch  Woods. 


Our  Huckleberry  Parties. 
Willow  Lane  Pic-Nics. 
Capturing  the  Hornets'  Nest. 
A  Gtrl  Lost  in  the  Woods. 
Six  Months  at  Uncle  Miah's. 
Close  of  the  Budget. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Solomon  Stark  and  the  Monkey. 
Vignette  Title  Page. 
Visit  to  the  Toy  Store. 
The  Bonfire. 


The  Cold  Water  Boy. 
The  Pic-Nic. 
Fanny's  Temptation. 
Life  on  a  Farm. 


THE  MILLER  OF  OUR  VILLAGE, 

AND  SOME  OF  HIS  TOLLS. 
BY  UNCLE  FRANK. 


CONTENTS. 


In™  >duction. 
Wha  r  I  Mean  by  Tolls. 
My  First  Horseback  Eide. 
A  Queer  Getting  Overboard. 
On  Cider  Drinking. 
Something  About  the  Hypo. 
A  Talk  About  Light  Houses. 


On  "Taking  it  Easy." 
Fish  and  Fishermen. 
Uncle  Jake's  Notions  about  Fish- 
ing. 
"Take  Care/1 
On  Biting  Files. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


The  Old  Miller  and  nis  Friends. 
Vignette  Title  Page. 
Prying  into  the  Letter. 
My  First  Horseback  Eidb. 


Playing  Truant. 
The  Eddystone  Light  House. 
A  Parley  with  Wicked  Boys. 
Fishing  in  the  Mill-Pond. 


A  PEEP  AT  OUR  NEIGHBORS: 

A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  WILLOW  LANE  BUDGET. 


BY  UNCLE  FRANK. 


CONTENTS. 


What  I  am  Going  to  Do. 
A  Glance  at  Parson  Daley. 
Doctor  Windman  and  His  Doses. 
Hunting  Hens'  Nests. 
Climbing  the  Peach  Tree. 
The  Ball  Family. 


Chips  op  the  Old  Block. 

The  Drowned  Girl. 

The  Young  Truth-Teller. 

The  New  Skates. 

Laughing  Bill. 

Uncle  Frank's  Leave-Taking. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


The  Drowned  Girl. 

Vignette  Title  Page. 

A  Peep  at  Willow  Lane. 

Parson  Daley  and  the  Little  Girl. 


Hunting  Hens'  Nests. 
Joe  Ball  and  his  Victim. 
Amanda  at  her  Knitting-Work. 
"  Oh,  Daniel  !  Forgi  ve  Me. 


THE  STRAWBERRY  GIRL  : 

OR,  HOW   TO  RISE  IN  THE    WORLD 


BY  UNCLE  FRANK. 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction. 

Castle-Building, 

The  Castle-Builders. 

The  Flower  of  the  Family. 

The  Fall  of  the  Air-Castles. 

Hopes  and  Disappointments. 

Glimmerings  of  Sunshine. 


That  Strawberry  Patch. 
A  Secret  Discovered. 
An  Unexpected  Visitor. 
Changes  at  Eose  Cottage. 
Amy,  as  a  Governess. 
An  Unlooked-for  Answer. 
A  Nut  for  Mrs.  Simpkins. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Amy  Eose  and  tier  Brother. 
Vignette  Title  Page. 
The  Evening  Prayer. 
Watching  fob  the  Ship. 


'•  What  Monstrous  Stitches." 
The  Serenaders. 

The  Professor  and  the  Governess. 
The  Class  in  Botany. 


THE  LITTLE  MISCHIEF-MAKER, 

AND    OTHER   STORIES. 
BY  UNCLE  FRANK. 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction. 
Clara.  Eedwood's  Tricks. 
Clara  at  Home. 
Clara  at  ScnooL. 
The  Drumming  Affair. 
My  First  Bargain. 
The  Prisoned  Bird. 


The  Boy  and  the  Robin. 

Leading  and  Driving. 

Beating  People  Down-. 

Father  Smith  and  the  Skin-Flints. 

Aunt  Susan  and  her  Secret. 

Go  Ahead. 

The  Happy  Family. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Mischief  Making. 

Vignette  Title  Page. 

The  Mischief  Maker  Discovered. 

Tearing  up  the  Letter. 


Vacation  Sports  and  Pastimes. 
The  Boy  and  the  Eobin. 
The  Prisoned  Bird. 
Beating  Down  the  Glazier. 


BOYS'  AND  GIKLS'  COUNTRY  BOOR. 


BY  UNCLE  FRANK. 


CONTENTS. 


introduction. 

The  City  Boy  in  the  Country. 

My  Sister. 

The  Young  Gleaner. 

Getting  Cooled  Off. 

A  Black-Snake  Story. 

Captain  Parry's  Old  Mare. 


My  Grandfather. 
Drowning  out  Woodchuoks. 
Cousin  Helen  and  her  Pony. 
The  Homesick  Boy. 
The  Wasps'  Nest. 
Conclusion. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


A  Peep  at  the  Cows  and  Sheep. 
Vignettte  Title  Page. 
Feeding  the  Chickens. 
"Winter  Sports  in  the  Country. 


The  Young  Gleaner. 
Uncle  Jesse  among  the  Sheep. 
The  Student  and  the  Old  Mare. 
Cousin  Helen  and  her  Poney. 


Charles  Scribner^s  Juvenile  Publications. 


CHARLOTTE  ELIZABETH'S  WORKS. 

PEESONAL  EECOLLECTIONS,  with  a  Memoir,  by  H.  J.  Tokna.  1  vol., 

18nio 50 

HELEN  FLEETWOOD, 1  vol.,  18mo 50 

JUDAH'S  LION, do . .  .50 

JUDAEA  CAPTA, do 50 

THE  SIEGE  OF  DEEEY, do 50 

LETTEES  FEOM  IEELAND, do 50 

THE  EOCKITE, do 50 

FLOEAL  BIOGEAPHY, do 50 

PEINCIPALITIES  AND  POWEES, do 50 

PASSING  THOUGHTS,  )  dQ 


FALSEHOOD  AND  TEUTH,  ^ 

IZEAM,  a  Mexican  Tale,     )                                 ■, 
OSEIC,  a  Missionary  Tale,  \ 

CONFOEMITT,                                  )                  do 
THE  CONVENT  BELL,  a  Tale,     \ 

CHAELOTTE    ELIZABETH'S    WOEKS,    Uniform    Edition,  12    vols., 

18mo 6  00 

do                     do                  do        in  Sheep  for  Libraries  and 
District  Schools, 7  00 

We  have  received  numerous  commendatory  notices  of  Charlotte  Elizabeth's 
Works,  from  the  religious  papers  of  all  denominations  of  Christians  in  this 
country  ;  and  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  have  not  supplied  themselves  with 
her  books,  we  insert  here  a  few  which  are  believed  to  be  a  fair  specimen  of  the 
opinion  of  the  Press. 


Charles  Scribner's  Juvenile  Publications. 

From  the  Morning  News. 
Works  of  Charlotte  Elizabeth. — Mrs.  Charlotte  Elizabeth  Tonna  is  one  of 
the  most  gifted,  popular,  and  truly  instructive  writers  of  the  present  day.  In  clear- 
ness of  thought,  variety  of  topics,  richness  of  imagery,  and  elegance  of  expres- 
sion, it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say,  that  she  is  the  rival  of  Hannah  More,  or  to 
predict  that  her  works  -will  be  as  extensively  and  profitably  read,  as  those  of  the 
most  delightful  female  writer  of  the  last  generation.  All  her  writings  are  per- 
vaded by  justness  and  purity  of  sentiment,  and  the  highest  reverence  for  moral- 
ity and  religion ;  and  may  safely  be  commended  as  of  the  highest  interest  and 
value  to  every  family  in  the  land. 

From  the  Religious  Spectator. 

If  Charlotte  Elizabeth  were  not  one  «f  the  most  attractive  and  useful  writers 
of  the  age,  we  might  perhaps  be  ready  to  say  that  she  was  in  danger  of  surfeiting 
the  public  appetite,  by  her  numerous  productions ;  but  as  it  is,  we  aro  con- 
strained to  say  the  oftener  she  shows  herself  as  an  author  the  better.  Her 
works  never  tire ;  and  we  are  never  even  in  doubt  in  respect  to  their  useful 
tendency. 

From  the  Albany  Argus. 

Charlotte  Elizabeth's  "Works  have  become  so  universally  known,  and  are  so 
highly  and  deservedly  appreciated  in  this  country,  that  it  has  become  almost 
superfluous  to  mention  them.  "We  doubt  exceedingly  whether  there  has  been  any 
female  writer  since  Mrs.  Hannah  More,  whose  works  are  likely  to  be  so 
extensively  and  so  profitably  read  as  hers.  She  thinks  deeply  and  accurately, 
is  a  great  analysist  of  the  human  heart,  and  withal  clothes  her  thoughts  in 
most  appropriate  and  eloquent  language. 

From  the  Journal  of  Commerce. 

These  productions  constitute  a  bright  relief  to  the  bad  and  corrupting  litera- 
ture in  which  our  age  is  so  prolific ;  full  of  practical  instruction,  illustrative  of  the 
beauty  of  Protestant  Christianity,  and  not  the  less  abounding  in  entertaining 
description  and  narrative. 

THE  PEEP  OF  DAY,  or  a  Series  of  the  Earliest  Eeligious  Instruction 
the  Infant  Mind  is  Capable  of  Eeceiving,  with  verses  illustrative  of  the 
subjects.    1  vol.,  18mo,  with  engravings, 50 


Charles  Scribner's  Juvenile  Publications. 

LINE  UPON  LINE,  by  the  Author  of  "  Peep  of  Day  ;"  a  second  series ....  50 

PRECEPT  UPON  PEECEPT,  by  the  Author  of  "Peep  of  Day,"  etc.,  third 
series, 50 

HERE  A  LITTLE  AND  THERE  A  LITTLE,  or  Scripture  Facts,  by  the 
Author  of  "  Peep  of  Day,"  etc.  1  vol.,  lSrno,  with  engravings.  4th 
series, ,50 

This  is  probably  the  best  and  most  popular  series  of  juvenile  books  ever  pub- 
lished. The  publisher  refers  with  the  most  entire  confidence  to  all  parents  and 
teachers  who  have  introduced  these  books  into  their  families  or  schools,  who 
will  testify  as  to  the  useful  and  correct  religious  instruction  which  they  contain. 


T.  S.  ARTHUR'S  POPULAR  TALES. 

KEEPING  UP  APPEARANCES,  or  a  Tale  for  the  Rich  and  Poor,  1  vol., 
18mo 45 

RICHES    HAVE    WINGS.    A  Tale  for  the  Rich   and   Poor.    1  vol., 
18mo 45 

RISING  IN   THE   WORLD.    A  Tale    for  the  Rich  and  Poor.    1  voL, 
ISmo 45 

MAKING   HASTE    TO  BE  RICH,  or  the  Temptation  and  Pall.    I  vol., 
18mo 45 

DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR,  a  Tale  for  the  Times,     lvol.  ISnio 45 

RETIRING    FROM    BUSINESS.    1  vol.,  ISmo 45 

The  above  bound  in  uniform  volumes  in  Sheep,  for  Libraries  and  District 
Schools,  6  vols 3  00 

"  Mr.  Arthur's  Tales  are  deservedly  popular.  His  delineations  of  life  come 
home  '  to  the  business  and  bosoms  of  men,'  and  are  without  exaggeration  or 
unhealthy  sentiment." — Ogdensburg  Sentinel. 

"  They  are  written  in  a  pleasant  style,  and  inculcate  in  an  interesting  manner 
maxims  of  sound  sense  and  morality.  We  sincerely  recommend  them  to  all 
parents  who  wish  that  their  children  should  be  furnished  with  books  fitted  both 
to  please  and  profit  them,  for  their  hours  of  relaxation." — Ithaca  Chronicle. 


Charles  Scribner's  Juvenile   Publications. 

"Every  young  man,  commencing  in  life,  in  duty  to  himself,  ought  to  read  and 
ponder  wejl  just  such  books  as  these ;  they  may  steer  him  clear  of  many  shoals 
and  quicksands  upon  which  business  men  are  so  often  stranded." — Republican. 

"  There  is  valuable,  interesting,  and  profitable  matter  in  these  little  volumes, 
■which  is  -well  adapted  to  give  the  right  direction  to  the  minds  of  the  young,  and 
to  make  them  useful  members  of  society." — Christian  Secretary. 

"  We  can  only  add  that  they  are  among  the  best  productions  of  Mr.  Arthur's 
pen,  and  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  library  of  every  family.  The  youthful  mind, 
particularly,  will  not  only  be  delighted  but  instructed,  as  the  author  has  set 
forth  with  great  truthfulness  various  phases  of  character  met  with  in  life,  giving 
peculiar  charm  to  those  worthy  of  imitation." —  The  Messenger. 

THE  GAMBLER,  a  Policeman's  Story,  by  Charles  Buedett.    1  vol.,  12mo. 

THE  ELLIOTT  FAMILY,  or  the  Trials  of  New   York  Seamstresses.    By 
Chaeles  Buedett.    1  vol.,  12mo,  with  Portrait  of  the  Author. 

"  His  stories  are  mainly  founded  upon  actual  occurrences,  are  well  and  forci- 
bly written,  and  exert  an  excellent  moral  influence." 

"  The  Gambler  is  founded  upon  events  in  real,  life,  communicated  to  the 
author  by  an  officer  connected  with  the  New  York  police  department,  and,  as 
wc  are  assured,  are  in  all  essential  points,  entirely  true." — Buffalo  Courier. 

"  The  story  is  one  of  absorbing  interest,  and  its  incidents  are  vividly  sketched 
while  its  moral  is  unexceptionable." — Detroit  Free  Press. 

"The  Elliott  Family. — This,  like  the  Author's  previous  works,  is  narrative 
founded  on  fact.  It  evinces  a  powerful  imagination,  sympathy  easily  kindled, 
and  a  remarkable  talent  at  impressive  narration.  It  has  a  specific  object,  and  it 
reaches  it  successfully." — Albany  Argus. 

"  It  is  a  story  of  truth,  and  is  related  in  forcible  and  touching  language. 
Those  who  have  hearts  should  purchase  and  read  it." — Providence  Post. 

WEEATHS    OF    FRIENDSHIP,  a  beautiful  juvenile  gift  book.    By  T.  S. 
Aethtje  and  F.  C.  Woodwoeth.    1  vol.,  12mo,  with  engravings. 

"  It  consists  of  a  variety  of  short  pieces,  well  fitted  to  arrest  attention,  and  to 
quicken  and  elevate  both  the  intellectual  and  moral  faculties." — Albany  Argus. 

"  The  stories,  some  forty  in  number,  without  being  in  themselves  childish. 


Charles   Scribner's  Juvenile  Publications. 

arc  happily  adapted  to  the  capacities  of  children,  and  the  fables  illustrate  faults 
and  follies  that  sometimes  belong  to  '  Children  of  larger  growth1  than  ihey  were 
written  for." — Neicark,  Daily  Advertiser. 

"  This  volume  of  wreaths  is  intended  for  juvenile  readers,  and  will  prove 
useful  and  entertaining." — Rochester  Democrat. 

"  It  is  designed  for  the  entertainment  and  instruction  of  the  young,  and  the 
tales  and  poetry  are  very  appropriate  to  these  objects.  They  are  well  told, 
and  rendered  more  attractive  by  being  handsomely  illustrated  with  well- 
executed  wood  cuts." — Dollar  Newspaper. 

FAIET  TALES  AND  LEGENDS  OF  MANY  NATIONS,  selected  and 
newly  told  by  0.  B.  Buekiiabdt,  with  Original  Designs  and  Illustrations. 
1  vol.  12mo. 

"  The  Illustrations  of  this  volume  are  exquisite.    The  most  delicate  taste  and 
aptness  of  conception  appear  in  them  all.    The  Tales  are  also  very  engaging, 
sprightly,  graceful,  full  of  incident,  and  withal  remarkably  characteristic  of  the* 
people  from  whom  they  are  severally  selected." — IT.  Y.  Evangelist. 

"  This  is  one  of  the  most  varied  and  comprehensive  books  of  fairy  stories  ever 
published." — Parlor  Gazette. 

"Here  is  another  book  that  contains  a  world  of  amusement  for  juvenile 
readers." — Albany  Argus. 

"  The  stories  are  written  in  an  agreeable  vein,  and  each  conveys  some  whole- 
some, instructive,  moral  lesson,  by  which  not  only  the  young,  but  the  middle- 
aged  and  old  may  receive  benefit  and  amusement." — Auburn  Daily  Adver- 
tiser. 

STORIES  FOR  SUMMER   DAYS    AND    WINTER   NIGHTS. 

I.  A  GRANDMOTHER'S  EECOLLECTIONS.  By  Ella  Eodmax,  1  vol., 
16mo.  with  Illustrations. 

"  This  is  a  simple  narrative  of  household  reminiscences,  more  pleasing  than 
many  a  book  of  far  greater  pretensions." — Courier  and  Enquirer. 

"  This  book  is  filled  with  entertaining  and  instructive  matters."—  Chronicle 
and  Atlas. 


Charles  Scribner's  Juvenile  Publications. 

"  It  tends  to  throw  a  mild  and  attractive  light  over  home,  and  to  minister 
to  those  gentler  feelings,  -which  find  its  best  soil  in  the  quiet  and  purity  of  tho 
sanctuary  of  childhood." —  Weekly  Sun. 

"  The  style  of  the  book  is  simple,  lively,  and  attractive ;  it  must  become  one 
of  the  favorites  of  the  day,  especially  among  young  readers." — Southern  Lite- 
rary Gazette. 

II.  BRAGGADOCIO,  a  book  for  Boys  and  Girls.  By  Mrs.  L.  C.  Tuthili^ 
Author  of  "I  will  be  a  Lady,"  etc.  1  vol.,  16mo,  with  six  tinted  Illustra- 
tions. 

III.  GITLLIYEE  JOI ;  his  Three  Voyages,  being  an  Account  of  his  Marvel- 
lous Adventures  in  Kailoo,  Hydrogenia,  and  Ejario.  By  Elbert  Perce, 
1  vol.,  IGmo.  with  six  tinted  Illustrations. 

IV.  THE  YOUNG  EMIGRANTS— Madelaine  Tube— the  Boy  and  tho 
Book — 1  vol.,  16mo,  with  Illustrations. 


